Italy: Meloni party argues over controversial flame in logo

A dispute has broken out in the party of Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over its logo, which is reminiscent of fascism. A minister in Meloni’s cabinet suggested removing the green, white and red flame from the symbol of the largest ruling party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy). “If we want to move forward, the time will come to put out the flame,” Luca Ciriani told the newspaper Il Foglio.

A flame in Italy’s national colors blazes in the Meloni party logo. It comes from the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), founded in 1946 by loyalists of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. In the symbolism of the right it stands for the eternal fire on Mussolini’s grave.

In 1995, the neo-fascist MSI merged into the moderate Alleanza Nazionale (AN), which retained the flame as its symbol. Today’s Fratelli emerged from the AN, which also retained the “fiamma tricolore” under the party lettering.

Ciriani emphasized that the flame belongs to “past history.” “The time will come when we will remove her from the symbol. It may not be soon, but it will come.” Senate President Ignazio La Russa reacted calmly to the initiative: “Remove the flame at some point? The world will also end sooner or later.”

The vice-president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Fabio Rampelli, however, vehemently rejected it: “Almost 30 percent of Italians have put a cross under our symbol. It doesn’t seem to me that the citizens see this as a problem. On the contrary, perhaps they are voting for us “Because we have the flame,” the newspaper “Corriere della Sera” quoted him as saying.

Since October 2022, the Fratelli have been in government together with the right-wing populist Lega party and the conservative Forza Italia party. The debate about the flame in the Fratelli party logo is not new. The party last discussed removal before the 2022 election, but decided to keep it. Meloni said at the time that she was proud of the flame.