Among the candidates for mayor in the municipal elections on 8 and 9 June is Alessandro De Giuli, supported by the Firenze Rinasce civic list. Among the creators of the ‘No Green Pass’ committee in the pandemic era, he expresses clear opposition to NATO, the European Union, the World Health Organization, the ECB, the International Monetary Fund, multinationals and neoliberalism. 63 years old, De Giuli was born in Valcamonica but has been in Florence since 1981. In the 1980s he played in Proletarian Democracy, then dedicated himself to publishing, in particular on teaching books for teaching Italian to foreigners. “Since 2015 – we read in the biography published online – he has been an active member of the Mondeggi community – […] Since 2022 he has been involved in the campaign against Russophobia and more recently he has mobilized alongside the Palestinian Resistance.”
How did your candidacy come about?
“From the circles and the area of radical dissent to the sending of weapons to Kiev and the support for the Zionist government, as well as the scandalous and criminal management of Covid and our presence in the euro and in NATO. We are the only ones who represent these positions and to oppose a system that everyone supports, therefore indispensable to democracy”.
What is the priority for Florence?
“Florence, like all cities victims of neoliberalism, suffers from profound evils: traffic chaos, disfiguring tourism, insecurity, lack of homes, healthcare in shambles, declining birth rate. But above all we fear the arrival of war, pursued by the reckless policies of the Draghi governments and Meloni. Then immediately an international peace conference, then a commission on the criminal management of Covid data by the health authorities and to verify the extent of the damage caused by the vaccine”.
More concrete issues: should the tram lines be completed?
“The system needs to be revised, because the tramway was born old: a project not designed for the needs of Florence but imposed by speculation that profits from its exorbitant costs. With much less money and much less damage we can have a more effective public transport system.”
How to improve this local public transport?
“Fast-charging electric buses, collective taxis like in many cities around the world, redesigned preferential lanes, revision of office and school transport timetables. And no to privatizations, which take away wealth from citizens and put it on speculation that finances the press and parties” .
Security, what interventions do you have in mind?
“It’s about having the will to cleanse the city of a few hundred stragglers. It would be simple if the right and left didn’t obey unspeakable interests that see open borders as the way to have cheap labor for their business.”
In favor of the green shield?
“No. When we talk about green and ‘green’ we must not think about the ecological but about the business that the industry in crisis tries to make by selling polluting and useless stuff to get back on its feet with public money, as happens with new boilers, insulation, electric cars. The shield is yet another traffic ban, it only serves financial interests.”
Traffic and parking, how to intervene? Are the underground ones useful?
“Collective taxis on preferential lanes at popular prices and urban planning, frequent regional trains, unfortunately abandoned by previous governments, to slow down the arrival of cars in the city. Yes to underground car parks and buildings used for parking, but the finance of the European Union prevents local authorities from making investments useful to society”.
Cycle paths and gentle mobility, his proposals
“The cycle paths do not give the desired results. Here too, rather than solving the problems, the choice was to help friends with senseless works. Yes to promoting cycling for children between home and school, but in an aging city bicycles are not the solution”.
From nurseries to health centers, what to do on social issues?
“Subtract healthcare spending from Big Pharma and the horrible industrial medicine that infects us with expensive and harmful drugs, abolish the limited number of people in medicine and favor patient-centred medicine. Spend on the real healthcare needs of citizens. Let the nursery be a luxury says a lot about the political and social failure of the neoliberal model”.
How do you solve the housing problem?
“By stopping the privatization of historic buildings, use the resources wasted on useless and very expensive works such as TAV tunnels and Foster station to invest in the restoration and expansion of public housing stock.”
Are you in favor of expanding the airport?
“No because the airport is of no use except to those who govern and manage it. If we could arrive and depart from Pisa with a fast and frequent train that allowed check-in on board we would do it faster and we wouldn’t have planes at all hours on the heads of the citizens of Peretola. airport means clientele and money for the parties of the right and left”.
In command Born in Rovezzano?
“It must be prevented, and all Florentines will be safer from possible bombs. And since we are talking about ‘Americans’, the closure of the Lungarno in front of the US consulate is unacceptable.”
Can the TAV tunnel and Foster station be stopped?
“Of course, I said it above. They absolutely must be stopped.”
How to conclude the stadium story?
“Let’s renovate the Franchi, then if Comisso presents an acceptable project to build one outside the city, we’ll do it.”
The first thing he would do as mayor
“Two things immediately, as I already mentioned. An international peace conference inviting all the parties involved as La Pira did on the Algerian question in the 1960s: Russia and Hamas are parties to the war and must therefore be part of the peace. Then a commission to investigate the criminal management of Covid data by health authorities”.
