(ANSA) Premier Giorgia Meloni told a rally of her rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party in a video-link to a Rome theatre marking one year of government Sunday that she walked tall and did not make compromises.
"I am proud of what we have done, of us, of our ruling class and of myself, I can look in the mirror and still see the same person, I have walked with my head held high, I have not compromised," she said at the event, 'Winning Italy - A year of results", underway in the Teatro Brancacio.
She went on to say that the FdI flew high while others rolled in the mud.
"What we are proving is that you could achieve unimaginable things and do extraordinary things without having to be mean or having to take shortcuts or having to please unpresentable people. "If we succeed and we are succeeding all these people will have to reckon with their conscience and I guarantee they will. So, no fear, head straight, eyes upwards and a smile on your face. We have great things to achieve for our people and we will achieve them", she told the event, in the recorded video-link because she is spending the day with her daughter after splitting from her partner and TV journalist Andrea Giambruno over his sexist remarks on TV.
"The others," she added, "go ahead and roll in the mud, we will fly high. Are they convinced that in the end they will manage to make us lose our cool? So far only they have lost it because our shoulders are broad, our conscience is clear. Our goals are big and what is important for us is not to let Italy and the Italians down. I love you".
Meloni said the party had suffered "unprecedented nastiness" from critics in politics and the media.
"The nastiness and the methods they use to attack us have reached unprecedented heights," she told the event.
The premier also told her supporters that that they were a mirror of others' pettiness.
"We are the enemy to be put down because we are a mirror, a mirror of their pettiness," she told the event.
"If we succeed all these people will have to reckon with their conscience," she added in the video which was recorded Saturday on the sidelines of a Mideast peace summit in Cairo.
Meloni said that the government would continue to implement reforms without looking anyone in the face.
"We want to 'reform in depth what needs to be reformed without looking anyone in the face", she said.
On a personal level, referring to the Giambruno split, Meloni added that she was a human being and asked for understanding.
"I do not know what time I will return to Italy, I am not sure if I will be able to be physically with you," she said on the video.
"I too am a human being and if there is anyone I can ask for understanding from, it is the sympathisers, representatives, militants and leaders of FdI".
Meloni told conservative daily Il Giornale Sunday in an anniversary interview that Italy is a protagonist on the world stage again thanks to her government.
Meloni said she was also proud of the measures the government has taken to help households and businesses over the course of the year, and particularly in the 2024 budget bill currently before parliament.
"It is difficult to choose between the many things the government has achieved in a year to get Italy moving again. I claim them all, but I am particularly proud of the measures decided in favour of families and businesses and of Italy's new-found leading role on the international scene," she said.
Meloni said in Cairo Saturday she was very well and doing her job as usual a day after splitting from her eight-year partner and father of their seven year old daughter Ginevra, TV journalist Andrea Giambruno, a day after a string of his allegedly lewd comments and apparent admission of infidelity with female colleagues were broadcast on another Berlusconi channel.
"I am well, I am very well, I am doing my job as always", said Meloni meeting the press in Cairo on the sidelines of the Mideast peace summit, responding to those who asked her how much it cost her to make this trip in the aftermath of her separation from Giambruno in the wake of a string of gaffes culminating in him talking of threesome and foursomes off air and apparently admitting the affair.
Challenged that there was also a political side to her post announcing their separation after they had parted ways "some time ago", she replied: "There is no political side". She stressed: "I don't know what is not clear about the fact that I don't want to talk about this anymore." Giambruno, 42, met Meloni, 46, in 2015, and they have a daughter, seven year old Ginevra.
Before his off-air sexist remarks on Retequattro were broadcast by satirical show Striscia la Notizia on Canale 5, Giambruno also got into hot water by telling women they should not get drunk if they wanted to avoid getting raped, by describing migrant movements as "transhumance", and by denying climate change and telling the German health minister that he should stay at home in the Black Forest if he found it too hot in Italy.
Meloni's critics have latched onto the split with Giambruno to renew criticism of her self-characterisation as a Christian mother and her campaigning on a God, motherland and family platform, with gay rights activists also saying she and FdI should stop policies against the registration of gay marriage and surrogacy outside Italy.
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