Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who personally announced Bignami’s appointment at a press conference, is the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a group with roots in the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). Bignami, 47, was last month elected to a second term in parliament. He has long been a member of Italy’s hard right, but has spent part of his political career in former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s more moderate Forza Italia. In a statement on Monday, he said he was “deeply ashamed” of the photos and strongly condemned “totalitarianism in every form”, calling Nazism and any movement associated with it “the ultimate evil”. Meloni has not commented on the 2016 photo, but has repeatedly condemned the notorious racist, anti-Jewish laws enacted by dictator Benito Mussolini in 1938 and last week told parliament she had “never felt sympathy for fascism”. “I have always considered the (anti-Semitic) racial laws of 1938 the lowest point in Italian history, a shame that will tarnish our people forever,” he told parliament. Bignami will serve under right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini, who is infrastructure minister and deputy prime minister. (Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Howard Goller)
