Italy is set to join a growing European push to tighten immigration and integration rules, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposing to ban burqas and niqabs in schools and limit the number of foreign students in classrooms.
At a raucous gathering of her party’s young Right-wing supporters, Meloni announced plans to introduce the legislation as Western countries grapple with Islam’s growing cultural and political influence. The measures would also require Italian-language lessons for parents of foreign students facing “serious difficulties integrating into the school system,” according to the Associated Press.
“For us, anyone who comes to Italy and wants to build their future here must learn our language, understand our culture, and respect our rules,” she said at the Gioventù Nazionale national festival in Rome. “It is the only serious way to welcome them.”
Meloni, who is leading Italy’s longest-serving government since World War Two, said the proposed ban would cover the burqa, a full-body garment that covers the face, and the niqab, a face veil that leaves only the eyes visible. Meloni made no mention of the hijab in her remarks.
The government’s cabinet must approve the measures before heading to parliament within 60 days for a final vote, the AP reported. Italians will head to the polls next year, with mass immigration emerging as a key political issue dividing voters and fueling tensions.
“It is unacceptable that in an Italian classroom the children who end up feeling pushed into a corner are Italian children because they have become the minority. That cannot be allowed,” Meloni told the youth wing of her Brothers of Italy party. “Calling all this integration is yet another lie, a convenient lie for those who live off ideology, for those who preach to us from their living rooms and then send their own children to schools where this problem does not exist.”
The Right-wing leader is the latest European politician racing to address simmering voter anger that governments are not moving quickly enough to tackle immigration and strains on social cohesion in communities large and small.
Over the weekend, Germany’s Right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won the most votes in a key regional election, dealing another blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government. Merz described the result for his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as a “disaster.” Restricting immigration and deporting foreigners are among the AfD’s key policy priorities.
Earlier in September, Austria implemented a new ban on headscarves for girls under 14 years old, The Daily Wire previously reported. While just 8% of Austria’s population is Muslim, data indicates that around 35% of students at primary schools in Vienna, the country’s most populous city, are Muslim.
Yannick Shetty, a supporter of the ban and member of the liberal Neos party, said the proposal is “not a measure against a religion. It is a measure to protect the freedom of girls in this country.”
Democracies and authoritarian states alike have enacted restrictions on the burqa. At least 24 countries, including Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, have introduced measures limiting its use.
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