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Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida on Thursday denied he was a racist as controversy grew over comments he made about “ethnic substitution” — stressing that he respects “ethnic” food and music.
Asked if he was aware that his remarks echoed racist rhetoric used in fascist Italy in the early 20th century, the minister said in an interview with Corriere della Sera: “Defining Italians by skin color is a mistake, and anyone who does not understand the difference between ethnicity and race is a fool.”
“I respect music or ethnic dishes regardless of the skin color of the person playing or cooking,” he added.
Lollobrigida, who is a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, sparked a national controversy over comments he made Tuesday in a speech at a trade union conference.
Referring to Italy’s population decline, Lollobrigida — who is also Meloni’s brother-in-law — said: “We cannot surrender to the idea of ethnic substitution,” which he defined as “Italians are having fewer children, we replace them with someone else.”
“That is not the way forward,” the agriculture minister added.
The Italian government is currently mulling measures to tackle Italy’s long-standing demographic problem: Birth rates have been falling for decades in the country, whose natality rate is among the lowest in the EU.
Lollobrigida tried to clarify what he meant in his follow-up interview Thursday, explaining he wanted to offer “an alternative” on behalf of Meloni’s government.
“There are those who think that if we have fewer children, the way is to have more immigrants,” he said. “In our opinion, instead, the first choice is to build a welfare system that creates the conditions for those who want to bring children into the world.”
But the agriculture minister’s remarks seemed to echo the so-called great replacement theory, a white-nationalist conspiracy that claims white Europeans and Americans are being “replaced” in their home countries by non-white immigrants.
The term was coined and popularized by the French writer Renaud Camus in a 2011 book, and is often referenced by far-right pundits on both sides of the Atlantic — from unsuccessful French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The theory’s origins are much older: They can be traced all the way back to the end of the 19th century, and were later picked up by Adolf Hitler, whose infamous book “Mein Kampf” makes explicit references to the replacement of the “Aryan population” by Jewish people.
Lollobrigida’s original remarks earlier this week caused uproar in Italian politics.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the center-left Democratic Party (PD) who faced anti-semitic attacks over her Jewish background after being elected to the party leadership in February, condemned his comments as “disgusting” and “unacceptable.”
Some mild criticism even arose from the ranks of Meloni’s coalition.
The Senate’s vice president, Gian Marco Centinaio — from Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party, a member of Meloni’s governing coalition — said the minister used “really ugly words” and “got the form wrong, and often form is substance.”
Elena Giordano contributed reporting.
