Hundreds of dictator Benito Mussolini's nostalgia marched through his hometown of Predappio on Sunday to celebrate the centenary of the "march on Rome" which marked the fascists' rise to power in Italy.
They were around 2,000, according to the police, gathered in this small town in Emilia-Romagna (north), where he is also buried, in the crypt of the family chapel.
Mussolini's tomb is a place of pilgrimage for tens of thousands of visitors every year.
“We will never stop admiring”
On Sunday, some of the dictator's loyalists were showing their support for the new government led by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, including the Fratelli d'Italia party, which she helped found just a decade ago and led from of 2014, has neo-fascist roots.
Nevertheless, in her first speech to Parliament this week, the new Prime Minister assured that she had never felt “sympathy or closeness with anti-democratic regimes (…), including fascism”.
“I would have voted for Lucifer if he had defeated the left in Italy.
So I am happy that we have the Meloni government,” rally organizer Mirco Santarelli said, according to Italian news agency Ansa.
Waving banners and an enormous Italian flag, many of them were dressed in black, a tribute to the Black Shirts, a militia of the fascist movement and then of Mussolini's regime.
Some raised their right arm in the fascist salute, despite the organizers' instruction to the contrary.
"If after a hundred years, we are still here, it is to pay homage to the one that this State wanted and that we will never cease to admire", declared his great-granddaughter, Orsola Mussolini, who took part in the walks with his sister, Vittoria.
“Mussolini Dux”
On October 28, 1922, the “march on Rome” marked the coming to power in Italy of Benito Mussolini, who established a regime marked by nationalism and authoritarianism.
Mussolini was shot dead by partisans in April 1945, in the final hours of the war, and his body was later hanged and mutilated by a mob in a square in Milan.
Although Italian law prohibits the apology of fascism, it is rarely enforced.
In Italy, Benito Mussolini, who came from the ranks of the left, is credited by many with having provided the country with infrastructure (trains, highways, etc.) or launched social protection programs.
His name can still be found on monuments across the peninsula, such as the enormous obelisk on which is inscribed “Mussolini Dux”, which still sits today a stone's throw from the Olympic stadium in Rome, without any context.
Portraits of the Duce also still adorn the walls of some ministries.
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