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“What happened is unacceptable. Neo-fascist groups must be dissolved, as the constitution stipulates,” she added.
Schlein, who heads the largest opposition party in the legislature, is among those calling on Interior Minister Meloni to appear in parliament to explain why the police apparently did nothing to stop the march. She sarcastically noted that a man was quickly surrounded by anti-terrorism police last month when he shouted “Long live anti-fascist Italy!” At the premiere of the La Scala Opera House.
“If you shout ‘Long Live Anti-Fascist Italy’ in the theatre, you will be recognized [by police]; “If you went to a neo-fascist rally with the Roman salute and a sign, you wouldn't do it,” Schlein said in a post on the social media platform X. Then she added: “Melonie doesn't have anything to say?”
Italy's post-war constitution prohibits the reorganization of Mussolini's dissolved fascist party, but far-right groups have avoided the problem by giving their organizations new names and claiming to be new entities.
There was no immediate comment from the Italian Brotherhood on the march, while Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who leads the more moderate Forza Italia party, said any celebration of dictatorship should be condemned.
“There is a law that says you cannot make an apology for fascism in our country,” he said. “We are a force that is certainly not fascist, but rather anti-fascist.”
He added that all “pro-dictatorship” marches should be condemned.
Meloni praised Mussolini in her youth but has since changed her position, saying in 2021 that there was “no room” in her party for “nostalgia for fascism, racism or anti-Semitism.”
Leaders of Italy's small Jewish community also expressed their dissatisfaction with the fascist salute.
“It is right that we remember the victims of political violence, but in 2024 this cannot happen with hundreds of people giving the Roman salute,” Ruth Dorigillo, who led the Jewish community in Rome for several years, wrote on X.
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Mussolini's anti-Jewish laws helped pave the way for the deportation of Italian Jews during the German occupation of Rome in the final years of World War II.
State radio Rai said Italian police were investigating the group salute.
The late 1970s saw Italy bloodied by violence committed by far-right and far-left supporters. The bloody acts included deadly bombings linked to the far right, and assassinations and kidnappings claimed by the Red Brigades and other left-wing extremists.
