Italy’s largest opposition party gets a young and radical new leader
The country’s two largest parties are now led by women
SUDDENLY THERE are not one but two women at the top of Italian politics. On February 26th the members of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) confounded forecasts by electing as their new leader a 37-year-old radical, Elly Schlein. She was, and is, an outsider in more ways than one. Ms Schlein grew up in Switzerland and has dual American and Italian nationality. She is in a relationship with a woman and was not even a member of the PD until recently, having quit back in 2015 in protest at the labour-market liberalisation policies of Matteo Renzi, a former PD prime minister.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Changing times”
Europe March 4th 2023
- The war in Ukraine has made eastern Europe stronger
- Ukraine finds stepping up mobilisation is not so easy
- Syrian earthquake survivors in Turkey have nowhere to go
- Italy’s largest opposition party gets a young and radical new leader
- After seven years of Brexit talks, Europe has emerged as the clear winner
From the March 4th 2023 edition
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