Is Italy heading for its first hard right leader since Mussolini?
The Story
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Mussolini and the Italians
After the Second World War there was no process that's kind of weaning Italians off fascism, none of the denarcification that we saw in Germany. And I think one of the reasons is because Mussolini was not defeated in one go by the Allies. In 1943 he was actually ousted by the King of Italy. He retreated to a kind of rump fascist republic called the Republic of Sallow - which was protected by the Germans. That to this day has left a kind of rather ambiguous approach to fascism on the part of many Italians. As someone once said to me, Italians see history a little bit like a visit to a butcher shop. They only want the nice cats.
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