Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister and leader of a party with neo-fascist origins, was greeted during a speech in Rimini with some delegates singing the protest song at her arrival.
Meloni was speaking during a convention of the three main Italian unions, CGIL, CISL, and UIL when some unionists sang the song and left the hall with their fists raised. Bella Ciao originated among the hardships of female paddy field workers in the late 19th century and became the anthem of the Italian resistance movement by partisans opposing fascism in the second world war. It has since become a hymn of freedom and resistance.
