Gabriel Attal vs. Giorgia Meloni

On Monday Elisabeth Borne resigned as prime minister of France, and President Emmanuel Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as the country’s new prime minister. He is young, handsome, and widely touted as France’s first “openly gay” prime minister. So France now has two toy boys at the top of the political heap, one ostensibly heterosexual and the other a homo.

On becoming prime minister, Mr. Attal singled out Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for strong criticism, condemning her immigration policies in no uncertain terms.

The two videos below show Mr. Attal’s remarks, and Ms. Meloni’s subsequent response. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Video #1:

Video #2:

Video transcript #1:

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Giorgia Meloni: “There is a Process of Islamization of Europe”

The following video is not current — these remarks made by (now) Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were uttered at a press conference during the Italian general election campaign in 2018.

I would be remiss if I failed to note that Ms. Meloni has been disappointing, to say the least, in her actions as Prime Minister concerning mass immigration into Italy. Nevertheless, it’s still good to hear her say these things.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Giorgia Meloni: “We Want to Fight the Mafia in All Its Forms”

In the following video, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni addresses the United Nations on the need to combat human trafficking, especially for sexual slavery.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni on the Lampedusa Crisis

The following two videos feature remarks made by Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni on the crisis in Lampedusa, which is currently being overwhelmed with an unprecedented flood of culture-enrichers from Africa.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Video 1: Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini

Video 2: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

Video transcript #1 (Matteo Salvini):

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Lampedusa is Full Up

The migrant invasion into Lampedusa continues at an unprecedented rate, and the inhabitants of the island are being overwhelmed. The Italian government is thus far unable to deal with the problem in any meaningful way.

It’s worth noting that voting makes no difference. Anybody who thought that voting for the Lega and Fratelli d’Italia in the last election would solve the immigration problem was sadly mistaken. It doesn’t matter who Italians vote for — the boats just keep coming.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Il Giornale:

From the shadow of the mother ship to the rapid debarkation: Lampedusa is under siege

by Valentina Raffa
September 12, 2023

Never so many debarkations in a single day. Sources tell Il Giornale that for now it is difficult to quantify the number of arrivals. And now the system is at risk of collapse. “We are exhausted.”

There are always a lot of them, but today it is an invasion. Ten, fifteen, even more. The boats off the coast of Lampedusa overloaded with migrants are impossible to count. The amazement is great even for the islanders, who are accustomed to continuous debarkation.

It is a tsunami of migrants that poured into Lampedusa. Small boats and iron boats, one next to the other, a short distance away, and others behind in the waters in front of the principal pier. And still other boats further off in the distance. “They continue to arrive,” says a source in Lampedusa. “We cannot count them. Many are stopped by the police.” And several groups managed to land on the beach independently.

The very brief respite due to bad weather is over. The hotspot, which yesterday morning counted only 19 migrants, is again at the point of collapse. In 24 hours almost 2,500 people have arrived, counting the migrants landing independently and stopped when they tried to disperse on land, and those rescued by the motorboats of the Guardia di Finanza, but another dozen landings have to be counted.

“The island can no longer support these numbers,” says the mayor of Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino. “The defense forces need to intervene. I am appealing to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the entire Italian government to adopt emergency measures. The territory is not able to withstand this shock wave, the scale of which surpasses even the resident population. It is impossible to guarantee adequate actions of assistance to migrants, notwithstanding the immense logistical force, which events show is insufficient. Citizens, businesses, economic operators, workers, police, and reception associations,” he concludes, “are already in a state of unsustainable physical and psychological suffering.”

Meanwhile, the transfers have begun. Some 600 will leave the island today on scheduled ferries and Diciotti boats of the Coast Guard to reach a new destination. In Italy, obviously, But it is only a palliative. It’s like a boat with an open leak You try to throw out the water, but it keeps coming in. Lampedusa is sinking and, at this rate, so will Italy if it cannot redistribute the migrants in an obligatory manner within the countries of the EU, and without distinguishing between the “placeable” and the “undesirable”, which instead happens for those few migrants who are relocated outside the borders.

Former mayor Toto Martello, now president of the Fisherman’s Consortium, who knows the territory well, and, over the years, has seen the changes caused by the phenomenon that affects everyone, not just the island, is convinced. What is needed is a 360-degree agreement to resolve the problem of illegal immigration, which has reached an exceptional number of almost 118,000 arrivals since the beginning of the year. “Up to now, there has been too much demagoguery and so many slogans,” he says, “but we need to think about the only possible solution, as indicated by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella: The creation of legal corridors which envisage agreements among all the nations bordering the Mediterranean and those of Africa. Immigration,” continues Martello, “will not be solved with the 114 million promised by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to empty Lampedusa, because it is not an economic phenomenon.”

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What About Viktor Orbán?

Long-time readers will remember our Hungarian correspondent CrossWare, who has translated large numbers of Hungarian-language videos and articles, including many speeches by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Long-time readers will also remember the dismay experienced by many people — including our Hungarian correspondents — when Mr. Orbán jumped aboard the COVID bandwagon, and then pushed vax mandates on Hungarian citizens.

The following reassessment of Viktor Orbán was written by CrossWare and published earlier today at Vlad Tepes in a slightly different form.

What about Viktor Orbán?

Thoughts by CrossWare

First of all, what is the connection between the Prime Minister of Hungary and myself?

We were both born and raised in the very same country town, both went to high school there (different ones) and Orbán is one year older than me. But we both grew up in the last period of socialism, so we are both a product of the same era. He went to law school after high school; I went for a BA in Engineering. So even though we ended up in very different places, our beginnings were pretty close to each other.

When socialism ended in 1989, I did not really care much about politics. However I followed his media presence, because he came from the same town as me. Fidesz was an insignificant liberal party at the time, with exactly the same type of message as all the other liberal parties in the world. That was the time when Gorge Soros (a.k.a. Schwartz) “helped” all these liberal parties against the dying socialist/communist powers. In 1998 the Fidesz party won the election (that was the year when I left Hungary and emigrated to Canada) and after just a single term, they were defeated by the communists and their latest liberal party partner the SZDSZ (Federation of Free Democrats). The voting process was suspiciously similar to the later 2020 USA election; the voting papers were destroyed before recount could be requested (against the rules), and Hungary faced eight years of the same type of system that the USA now lives under with Joe Biden.

Viktor Orbán and Fidesz regained power in 2010, and now he is the Prime Minister of Hungary for the fourth time with a two-thirds super-majority. (There are no term limits in Hungary.)

I started focusing on politics again and OV’s role in it when the great migration started in 2015 and he had such a remarkable staunch view on it. That is when I started to translate videos of his speeches for both Gates of Vienna and VladTepesBlog. In 2017, I had to move back to Hungary to help my aging parents and my sister, who suffered some losses and chronic diseases in her life.

That was the point when I started to face reality, which was not always in sync with what Orbán spoke about in his speeches.

In his early years, Viktor Orbán was confronted by a journalist about some difference between what he said and what he did, his answer was eye-opening (at least for me):

“Never listen to what I am saying, only what I am doing” — Viktor Orbán

Well, herein lies the problem…

Living in Hungary opened up for me various sources of information, which contradicted the rosy picture suggested by Orbán’s speeches. Also, I watch all politicians with suspicion, looking for alternate motives for their behaviour. (This could be my personal issue with this “profession”.)

Let’s review all the issues based on some groupings of mine:

His personality, leadership:

I think Viktor Orbán is a highly intelligent, talented politician. Without his knowledge and diligence, Fidesz as a party could have never become so organized and ready to lead. He has a typical type A personality, which makes him a strong, charismatic leader. But it comes with all the negative side of such personality: controlling, aggressive and looking at team members as potential risk to his own power. Orbán successfully eliminated most of the potential talent for leadership in his environment, which means that when he is no longer able to lead Fidesz, the party will face a crisis finding a similar talent to continue to lead.

Economy:

In 2010 the new Orbán government announced a new “movement”, which they called the NER (National Cooperation System). The idea behind it was to strengthen Hungarian-owned companies in all sectors of the economy and with that decrease our dependence on foreign companies, which many times followed their owners’ economic and political agendas. The point was to try to recreate layers of Hungarian owners, rich people who can support national causes. This societal layer was completely eliminated in the communist era. This idea worked completely in theory, but only partially in practice. As with any successful political movement, the hyenas showed up and slowly they built into the system. I have heard multiple rumours about occasions when a successful small business owner receives a visit from a representative from a large NER company, who has “excellent political connections” and makes an offer to buy the business. This is the type of offer which nobody can refuse, because the next day the tax office people arrive, and because of the overcomplicated tax system (which Fidesz, after twelve years of rule, could not fix or never wanted to fix), everyone may be found guilty of breaking some of the rules. So, mafia behaviour is rampantly present in the system, and it does not seem like there is any political will to fix the issues.

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Clandestine Mosques in Nîmes

The following report from the city of Nîmes in the south of France describes the problem of clandestine mosques that lurk in the city’s basements.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

The problem described in the above video is not confined to France. On multiple occasions Vlad and I have highlighted clandestine mosques in various Italian cities, as decried by Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni:

Video transcript:

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Giorgia Meloni on the EU’s Deal With Tunisia

In the following video Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni answers journalists’ questions about the agreement on immigration between the European Commission and Tunisia, and other North African matters. Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Note: Giulio Regeni, who is mentioned by the journalist asking the question, was an Italian university graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt in early 2016. Patrick George Zaki is a Coptic Egyptian postgraduate student who was recently sentenced to prison in Egypt, and then pardoned by President al-Sisi.

Video transcript:

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The EU Pays Protection Money to Tunisia

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from eXXpress. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

EU buys help against asylum mafia — for €900 million in tax money

Illegal migration to Italy is increasing massively. Now Tunisia should help out. Even before the vessels set off for Europe, they are supposed to be stopped by Tunis. The EU Commission is making a proud €900 million available for this.

Italy is currently experiencing an explosive increase in illegal migration. More than 75,000 migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores since the beginning of the year. That is more than twice as many as in the same period last year, when there were around 31,900. One of the most important transit countries is Tunisia. A new deal between Brussels and Tunis is now intended to slow down the influx.

The deal: the EU is helping the economically ailing country with massive financial aid; in return Tunisia is doing more against the trafficking mafia.

€100 million for rescue operations and repatriations

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the heads of government of the Netherlands and Italy and Tunisia’s President Kais Saied announced the signing of the relevant declaration of intent in Tunis. The EU Commission will make a proud €900 million available for the North African country.

Tunisia, on the other hand, is supposed to reduce departures to Europe and therefore do more than before to combat people-smugglers and illegal crossings. The EU Commission wants to make a good €100 million available for search and rescue operations and the repatriation of migrants. This corresponds to three times the amount with which Brussels recently supported the country on average each year. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in particular had pushed for an agreement. Rome wants the boats leaving Tunisia to be stopped earlier on their way to southern Italy.

Von der Leyen: “Have a good package” [And how much is her commission from that “package”?]

A good month ago, EU politicians were already in Tunisia for talks to initiate the deal. “We have a good package. Now it’s time to implement it,” von der Leyen said. Tunisia’s President Saied declared: “We are determined to implement them as quickly as possible.” When it came to migration, he spoke of an “inhuman situation” that had to be solved collectively.

Afterword from the translator:

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Giorgia Meloni: Fast-Track Ukraine Into the EU

In the following video recorded at a conference in Rome on Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promotes the rapid assimilation of Ukraine into the European Union.

Ms. Meloni’s position puts her at odds with a substantial portion of her fellow Italians, among them Silvio Berlusconi and other members of her government. Italian public opinion is, generally speaking, pro-Russian.

One may speculate about the prime minister’s reasons for pushing Ukrainian membership in the EU and lionizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She’s an intelligent woman, and must surely realize that Mr. Zelensky is an American puppet. Perhaps she wants to curry favor with the USA. Or maybe there are Italian commercial interests lobbying for Ukraine — who knows?

The resistance to the globalist Left isn’t monolithic. To take another example, Donald Trump is still promoting the vax. And Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán imposed a strict lockdown during the “pandemic”. I don’t often encounter fellow dissidents whose positions are in exact alignment with mine.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Below are excerpts from an English-language article in Remix News (hat tip Reader from Chicago) about Ms. Meloni’s remarks:

Meloni Urges EU to Speed Up Accession Talks With Ukraine

Speaking at a conference in Rome on Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called on European allies to start accession negotiations with Ukraine as soon as possible.

In a joint statement with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal, the Italian prime minister underlined that Ukraine’s future must be shaped in such a way that it can increasingly adapt to European dynamics and institutions.

“The smartest way to thank the Ukrainians for what they are doing is to accelerate their chances to participate in European institutions,” the Italian leader said. “We must acknowledge the enormous efforts made by Kyiv to reform its system and bring it more in line with the European Commission’s requirements.”

She added that Italy wants to play a leading role in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Video transcript:

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The Great Replacement: French and Italian Perspectives

The videos below, one from France and one from Italy, approach the issue of the Great Replacement from two very different angles.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

The first video is a report from Champigny-sur-Marne, an extremely culturally enriched suburb to the southeast of Paris. Two ethnic French visitors talked to local residents, and were rebuked by a Muslim for videotaping near a mosque without permission:

Francesco Lollobrigida is a member of Fratelli d’Italia, and serves as Minister of Agriculture in the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Mr. Lollobrigida got himself into a heap o’ trouble at a conference yesterday when he made remarks about the Great Replacement. Discussion of such matters was already a no-no, and became doubleplus ungood after the Christchurch massacre in 2019.

Needless to say, the global media snoids came down on Mr. Lollobrigida like a ton of bricks (see, for example, this BBC article). Here’s what got him into so much trouble:

Video transcript #1:

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The Sicilian Connection

The Italian government declared a state of emergency earlier this week due to the catastrophic increase in the number of African culture-enrichers arriving on Italian shores.

The video below from Dutch television reports on a boat carrying 700 illegal migrants that landed in Sicily. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Here’s an English-language article about the situation (hat tip Reader from Chicago):

Italy Declares National Emergency as Migrants Pour Off Boats, Flood Shelters

The Italian government declared a six-month nationwide state of emergency Tuesday as thousands of migrants flooded the country’s southern coast, resulting in overflowing shelters, according to a cabinet meeting statement.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her cabinet met Tuesday at Palazzo Chigi in Rome to discuss the substantial increase in the migration flow towards Italy, “which is causing situations of very serious overcrowding in the first reception centers,” according to a cabinet meeting statement.

“From these data follows the need to urgently provide for the implementation of extraordinary measures to decongest the Lampedusa hotspot and to create new structures, suitable both for the reception needs and for the recognition and repatriation of migrants who do not have the requisites for stay on the national territory,” reads the statement.

Video transcript:

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Giorgia Meloni Cracks Down on Migrant Traffickers

Last week Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced a new initiative targeting the activities of people-smugglers outside of Italian territory.

Many thanks to HeHa for translating this video report, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Below are excerpts from a Remix News report (hat tip Reader from Chicago) about Prime Minister Meloni’s announcement:

Italian Government Announces Strict New Immigration Rules, Up to 30 Years in Prison for People Smugglers

The Italian government has decided to introduce prison sentences ranging from 20 to 30 years for traffickers who cause the deaths of migrants as a part of new regulations aimed at tackling illegal immigration.

The new law was announced at a special meeting on Thursday in Cutro, which was the scene of the Feb. 26 boat disaster in Calabria.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced the new regulations at a press conference after the cabinet meeting in the town of just over 10,000 inhabitants.

Video transcript:

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We Are All Antifa!

A week ago Antifa storm troopers marched in the Italian city of Florence to protest a public gathering of right-wing high school students. The “anti-fascists” threatened Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other “fascists” with violent death, and promised that they would shut down all right-wing movements through grassroots action.

Many thanks to HeHa for translating this video report, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Below is a brief excerpt from an English-language article (hat tip Reader from Chicago) about the Antifa march in Florence:

Threats to PM Meloni and Praise of Communist Massacre Heard Among ‘Anti-Fascist’ Protestors

A march of “anti-fascist” protesters in Florence allegedly saw participants directly threaten Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and praise a communist massacre of Italian civilians during the Second World War.

The gathering of “anti-fascists” took place Tuesday evening following violence between a group of right-wing students from the group Azione Studentesca (Student Action) and others outside a local high school as the right-wing group was handing out leaflets.

Video transcript:

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