Gianfranco Fini (born 3 January 1952) is an Italian politician who served as the president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013. He is the former leader of the far-right Italian Social Movement, the conservative National Alliance, and the center-right Future and Freedom party. He was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Silvio Berlusconi's government from 2001 to 2006.
Biography
Family origins
Fini was born on 3 January 1952 in Bologna. His grandfather, a communist activist, died in 1970. His father, Argenio "Sergio" Fini (Bologna, 1923 – Rome, 1998), was a volunteer with the Italian Social Republic, a fascist state in Northern Italy allied with Germany during 1943–45; he later declared feeling close to the centre-left Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PDSI), but withdrew from political activity after his son became involved in the Italian Social Movement (MSI).
His mother Erminia Marani (Ferrara, 1926 – Rome, 2008) was the daughter of Antonio Marani, who took part along with Italo Balbo in the march on Rome, which signalled the beginning of Italian fascism in 1922. The name Gianfranco was chosen in remembrance of a cousin, who was killed when he was 20 years old by partisans soon after the liberation of Northern Italy on 25 April 1945.
Personal events
In the 1980s, he met Daniela Di Sotto, at that time married to Sergio Mariani, a friend and party officer. Di Sotto ended her marriage to stay with Fini. Mariani would try to kill himself soon after. In 1985 they had their only daughter, Giuliana. Fini and Di Sotto married in a civil ceremony in Marino in 1988. They separated in 2007.
Five months after his separation, his relationship with Elisabetta Tulliani, a lawyer, was revealed. In December 2007, they had a daughter, Carolina. Their second daughter is called Martina.
Political career
From the beginning to the role of Deputy of Giorgio Almirante
Fini attended "Laura Bassi" high school in Bologna. His first known involvement with politics occurred in 1968, when the 16-year-old Fini was involved in clashes with communist activists, among them a protest in front of a cinema against the screening of the John Wayne movie The Green Berets. At this time, he became involved with the Italian Social Movement.
He then began his political career in the Youth Front, the MSI youth organization. Three years later, he moved with his family to Rome. In August 1976 he served his military service in Savona, then in Rome at the Ministry of Defence. In 1977 he became national secretary of the Youth Front, chosen by Giorgio Almirante, secretary of the party that now called itself "MSI - Destra Nazionale". Fini had placed fifth among seven candidates elected in the national secretariat of the youth.
In the meantime, Fini had also graduated with a degree in pedagogy from La Sapienza University in Rome. He also collaborated with the party's newspaper, Il Secolo d'Italia, along with the youth movement magazine Dissenso.
Fini was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies on 26 June 1983 as a member of the MSI. Re-elected in 1987, in September he was nominated by Almirante to be his successor as the party's secretary.
In 2009 it emerged that as early as 1980 Almirante had identified Fini as one among a group of young Italians who were "young, non-fascist, non-nostalgic, who believe, as I do by now, in these institutions, in this Constitution. Because only in this way the MSI can have a future."
From the Italian Social Movement to National Alliance
Giorgio Almirante died in May 1988, and at the party's congress in Sorrento that year, Fini defeated the right wing of the party, headed by Pino Rauti, and was elected party secretary. He remained in the national secretariat of the MSI until January 1990, when at the next party congress in Rimini, Pino Rauti was elected secretary. But in July 1991, after a tough electoral defeat in administrative and regional elections in Sicily, Fini returned to his role as party secretary. He held this post until the dissolution of party in 1995.
During his time as national secretary, he confirmed the MSI's role as the inheritors of Benito Mussolini's Fascist legacy with a number of famous polemical statements, including: "Dear comrades, MSI claims its right to refer to fascism" (1988), "We are fascists, the heirs of fascism, the fascism of the year 2000" (1991), "After almost half a century, the idea of fascism is alive" (1992), "There are phases where freedom is not among the key values" (1994), "Mussolini was the greatest Italian statesman of the twentieth century", "Fascism has a tradition of honesty, correctness and good government" (1994).