Just after the start of one of his final campaign rallies this week, Matteo Salvini lunged into the kind of provocative anti-Muslim pitch to voters that has fuelled his rise in Italian politics.
The leader of the Northern League said he had lost weight while hunting for votes around the country, so would be eating “six kilos of polenta with ossobuco” that night. “I won’t say salami or pork because some may get offended. Long live sausage! Long live salami! Long live pork, coppa and pancetta,” he told a cheering crowd in the northeastern city of Padua.
After the quip about Muslim pork consumption, he became serious on his plans to rid Italy of illegal immigrants. “Guys, we have imported a few good people,” Salvini said. “But there has also been a tide of delinquents and I want to send them home, from the first to the last. We are packed with drug dealers, rapists, burglars – and the League is the solution.”