Prime minister is scrambling to clean up her government after youth vote powered a damaging referendum defeat

Filippo Michelini was having a drink at San Calisto, a popular bar in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood on Wednesday night. As he chatted to his friends, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government was reeling from a failed referendum, and her beleaguered tourism minister, Daniela Santanchè, had just resigned.

Michelini, a 29-year-old computer scientist who lives in Brussels, was spending a few days in the Italian capital after returning home last weekend to cast his ballot in the plebiscite on judicial changes.

Die rechte Ministerpräsidentin hat eine schwere Niederlage erlitten. Auf Elly Schlein, Chefin der größten Oppositionspartei Italiens, setzt die Linke des Landes die Hoffnung.

The Italian PM has won plaudits for her tightrope-walking pragmatism. But have voters now had enough?

Giorgia Meloni has a long history of defying expectations. She holds the record as Italy’s youngest cabinet member, at 31, and is its first female prime minister, thus overcoming two of Italian politics’ most formidable obstacles, gerontocracy and machismo. After she took office in autumn 2022, she quickly put to rest concerns that her post-fascist background would make her a foreign policy radical. Staunch support for Ukraine and a pragmatic relationship with EU leaders won her international credibility.

Against this backdrop, the defeat she suffered in this week’s referendum – where Italians rejected the government’s proposed constitutional reform of the judiciary by 53.2% to 46.8% – appears all the more significant.

Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome

Giorgia Meloni made public request for Daniela Santanchè to quit in effort to restore credibility after voters rejected judicial reform

Italy’s embattled tourism minister has resigned, heeding a call to step down as the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, strives to restore credibility after a bruising defeat in a referendum that has thrown her far-right government into turmoil.

The resignation on Wednesday of Daniela Santanchè, a prominent and brash member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, came after the prime minister took the unusual step of calling in a public statement for her to go.

Events in Denmark and Italy show geopolitical instability is creating opportunities for a centre-left response to the far right

In the lead-up to Denmark’s snap election on Tuesday, it was revealed that blood supplies were flown into Greenland in January in order to treat Danish military casualties in the event of a US invasion. Against that surreal backdrop, the country’s Social Democrat prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, did not need to work too hard to justify a “stick to what you know” message in uncertain times.

Ms Frederiksen’s surprise gamble in calling an early poll duly paid off, but only just. Donald Trump’s threats to annex territory belonging to a Nato ally handed her party a patriotic lifeline, after it had endured a historic humiliation in local contests last November. But in a campaign dominated by domestic issues, the hoped-for Trump bump was modest, meaning that any Frederiksen-led coalition will depend on centrist support. The Social Democratic party remains comfortably the biggest political force, but its vote share dropped markedly compared to the last general election, while rivals to the left and on the far right made notable gains.

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France’s National Rally missed key targets in local elections ahead of next year’s seismic presidential vote – and the mainstream is doing OK elsewhere, too

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The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either.

But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high.

Referendum result could tarnish PM’s reputation and make winning next year’s general election more challenging

Italian voters have rejected an overhaul of the country’s judiciary pushed by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, an outcome that is expected to tarnish her reputation and make winning next year’s general election more challenging.

In a two-day referendum, almost 54% of voters said no to the plans to reorganise the judiciary, compared with about 46% for the yes camp.

Es ist ein schwerer Schlag für die Regierung unter Ministerpräsidentin Giorgia Meloni: In einer Volksabstimmung in Italien spricht sich die Mehrheit gegen einen grundlegenden Umbau der Justiz aus.

National referendum is being seen as a de facto confidence vote on the government – and the polls are neck and neck

In the run-up to a referendum in Italy on a government quest to overhaul the judiciary, a campaign flyer circulated online quoting Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, taking aim at judges and feminists. “Judges block the deportations of rapists. Where are the feminists? Vote yes – there will not be another opportunity,” it read.

The flyer, posted on the Facebook page of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots, was subsequently removed. But its tone has defined a campaign dominated by inflammatory rhetoric rather than meaningful debate.

Mit Kritik an Rom holte der Lega-Gründer im Norden des Landes viele Stimmen. An der Seite von Silvio Berlusconi saß er dann dort in der Regierung. Jetzt ist er mit 84 Jahren gestorben.

Ein Aussteigerleben im Wald war in den Augen der italienischen Justiz offenbar Kindeswohlgefährdung. Die Kinder kamen in ein Heim. Im Streit um die „Waldfamilie“ verhärten sich die Fronten. Nutzt die Politik den Fall für ihre Zwecke?

Unicredit-Chef Andrea Orcel will die Frankfurter und die Bundesregierung an den Verhandlungstisch zwingen. Trotz mächtiger Gegner könnte sein Plan aufgehen.

Die italienische Regierungschefin plant eine Justizreform. Sie will die Macht der Staatsanwälte und Richter beschneiden. Manche Kritiker sehen die Gewaltteilung in Italien in Gefahr.

Investigation finds three were hacked by Paragon spyware at same time, potentially fuelling questions for government

Italian prosecutors investigating a domestic spying scandal say they have independently confirmed that two immigration activists and a journalist were hacked at the same time in late 2024, suggesting all three were part of the same “infection campaign”.

The development could bring more questions for the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni, who has denied any involvement in the hacking of the journalist, the Fanpage editor-in-chief, Francesco Cancellato.

As the Spanish PM decries the war in Iran, other politicians are unable – or unwilling – to speak against the US president

On Wednesday morning, Pedro Sánchez delivered a 10-minute televised address with the rather bland title: “An institutional declaration by the prime minister to assess recent international events.”

The speech’s words, however, were anything but beige. Hours after Donald Trump had threatened to cut off trade with Spain over its government’s refusal to allow two jointly operated bases in Andalucía to be used to strike Iran, Sánchez set out his thinking.

To even be talking about this drastic deportation policy is a sign the far right is winning. In Italy, it’s more than just talk

Meeting Tommy Robinson earlier this month, the French anti-immigration politician Éric Zemmour bluntly summed up his mission: “Politics needs to defeat demographics.” Given rising numbers of Muslims, he said, there was perhaps “10 to 20 years” left to save Europe from “disappearing”. Both men placed their hopes in one policy to reverse the “invasion”: remigration.

At root, remigration means using mass deportations in order to curtail minority – especially Muslim – populations. In France’s 2022 presidential election, Zemmour pledged the creation of a “ministry of remigration” meant to remove “1 million” people, targeting undocumented and dual-national criminals. In practice, supporters of the idea often blur distinctions between criminals and non-criminals, longer-standing citizens and recent migrants, the undocumented and those with settled status.

Meloni government had claimed case showed why officers using weapons in self-defence needed more protection

The arrest of an Italian police officer on suspicion of murder over the fatal shooting of a Moroccan man has prompted a row after the opposition accused Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government of exploiting the case for political ends.

Abderrahim Mansouri, 28, was shot in the head by Carmelo Cinturrino, assistant chief of Mecenate police station, during a police drugs patrol in the Rogoredo area of Milan in late January. Cinturrino originally said he had acted in self-defence after Mansouri pulled a gun on him.

Rom bringt einen Algerier in eines der umstrittenen Haftlager in Albanien – ohne schriftlichen Beschluss. Nun muss der Staat ihm eine Entschädigung zahlen. Ministerpräsidentin Meloni reagiert heftig.

Political tensions rise after fatal attack at protest in Lyon as Emmanuel Macron hits out over remarks by Italian PM

A French prosecutor is seeking murder charges against seven suspects in the fatal beating of a far-right activist that has fuelled political anger beyond France’s borders, prompting Emmanuel Macron to tell Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to keep out of French affairs.

Quentin Deranque, 23, died from head injuries after being attacked by at least six people on the sidelines of a far-right protest in Lyon on 12 February. Most of the 11 suspects who have been detained are from far-left movements.