” Who is that ? Who is dead ? yells a Roman riding his scooter at full speed, phone in hand. Like wildfire this Monday morning, the announcement of the death of Silvio Berlusconi, 86, is coming to all mobiles in the country. For those who didn’t hold the Cavaliere in their hearts, a simple emoji of the octogenarian with a smile on his face and a glass of champagne in his hand is enough to mark the occasion. “But this is all for Berlusconi? asks a passerby in front of the police checkpoints padlocking the Roman city center. The visit of the Iraqi president, replies a rifleman. “He chose his day well to come,” plagues the flâneur.
If it is in Milan (where the funeral will be celebrated on Wednesday at the Duomo) that the image of Silvio Berlusconi, the businessman, will remain eternally attached, it is in Rome that the political history of the “Cav” is in much of it written. It was there, in an apartment near Piazza Navona and its fountains, that Forza Italia was born, almost three decades ago. At the Palazzo Grazioli, a few steps from Piazza Venezia, which over the years has become the “heart of Italian politics”, famous as much for its distinguished guests, its fights between party executives as for the sexual escapades during “elegant dinners organized by Berlusconi. “Here, a lot of things have happened. And not just beautiful ones! jokes a resident at the foot of the imposing building. “We are really losing a great entrepreneur, a captain of industry,” Marco laments. “And even a football star with his AC Milan,” even lip service to this Lazio tifoso.
The end of the morning is punctuated by the rain of tributes and political reactions to the boss of Forza Italia. All edges combined. In a dazzling blue jacket, her gaze fixed on the camera, Giorgia Meloni salutes the memory of Silvio “the fighter”, he who, 15 years ago, entrusted the young thirty-something Roman with the portfolio of the Ministry of Youth. With Berlusconi, “Italy learned that it should not impose any limits”, continues the President of the Council. Also very moved, Matteo Salvini, the other ally of the right-wing coalition, recalls having had the Cavaliere on the line on Saturday evening, after the Champions League final (and the defeat of Inter): “He worked for the European elections, for Forza Italia, for the government, for the center right. He was never satisfied, ”testifies the head of the League.
In front of the Senate, the last parliamentary home of the octogenarian after his return last September, Maurizio Gasparri, faithful among the faithful, takes his turn to speak. Under a bright sun, in the middle of the cohorts of tourists all smiles, the vice-president of the palace Madame confides to being struck “by grief, like the death of a father”. “We know that nothing will be the same again,” continues the elected official of the Berlusconian formation. Some Roman voters are already fearful of the coming tremors. “Forza Italia is Berlusconi. Without him, the party no longer has any meaning. Where will its elected officials and voters go, to Meloni and Salvini or to other opposition parties? It’s the end of an era and especially the beginning of problems for the majority. »
In the ranks of the opposition, the reactions are more mixed. The eternal rivals of the Democratic Party preferred to postpone the meeting of the national leadership. “We have always been adversaries, but at this moment remains the great respect due to a protagonist in the political history of this country”, justified the secretary of the PD Elly Schlein. On the left of the left, at Potere al Popolo (the Italian LFI), we do not share the emotion. “No, he was not a great statesman, he was not a good person. And no, we don’t want to offer our condolences,” they wrote on Twitter. Message signed, with a touch of irony: “The usual communists”.
Among many young Romans met on Monday, few are those to mourn the disappearance of the former President of the Council. “By his policy and his behavior, he has brought Italy into disrepute”, laments one of them. A bit of emotion, concedes all the same Alberto, in his thirties: “It’s a part of me that is gone. Berlusconi, these are my first demonstrations, shouting matches, broken friendships. He divided our world between the right and us. Others still find it hard to believe in the departure of the old Milan veteran, so often given for dead. “In all my life, I have known nothing but Berlusconi,” Raffaele admits. And to ask again, to be clear: “It’s done, he really left this time? »
