Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has once again found herself in the international media spotlight. This time, however, not through any “fault” of his own.
The meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron the other day was very warm; Macron hugged her with a special warmth, as if he didn’t want to let go of her hand.
When Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s Prime Minister in 2022, it was not just another change of power. For the first time, a woman who had entered politics since her teenage years and, over the decades, had risen from the opposition to the top of power, stood at the helm of the country.
Giorgia Meloni was born on January 15, 1977, in Rome. Her father, a lawyer, was originally from Sardinia, and her mother, Anna Paratore, has Sicilian roots.
Meloni grew up in one of Rome’s ordinary working-class neighborhoods. Her childhood was not easy: her father abandoned the family, and her mother raised her. Her father was Sardinian and worked as a tax consultant. Her mother was Sicilian. Under the pseudonym “Josie Bell”, she wrote more than one hundred and fifty novels. When Giorgia was only two years old, her father left the family, and her mother was forced to raise her two children alone. Since adolescence, Giorgia has not communicated with her father.
At the age of three, she moved with her mother and sister to Garbatella, a relatively poor neighborhood known for its “left” and liberal sentiments. According to her recollections, the reason for the move was that she and her sister had accidentally started a fire in their previous apartment.
However, it was in this environment that her political worldview was formed. The organizational abilities of the future prime minister were manifested from childhood. At the age of 15, Meloni founded an organization called “Ancestors” at her school. She and her supporters intended to fight against the school education reforms proposed by the then Minister of Education, Rosa Russo Iervolino, who had “left” political views. She joined the “Italian Social Movement” (MSI), a force created by supporters of Benito Mussolini.
