Everyone at Ilaria’s on Saturday evenings: Salis is very popular in the left wing of Milan. Indeed, «Ilaria», as they confidentially call her, brothers in the struggle, committed ladies and artists, thoughtful professors and «students*» (as they define themselves in the appeals circulated in recent weeks) of the alternative left.
The mood is a bit like that of the famous Pericoli&Pirella strip «Tutti da Fulvia on Saturday evening», about the radical-chic and very busy living rooms of the good Milanese bourgeoisie: «What vote? Ilaria, Ilaria.” It’s not Ilaria Salis’s fault, obviously, that she is in Budapest and not in Brera. But certainly the candidacy of Orban’s prisoner, in that world of aperitifs, vernissages, groups listening to Scurati’s monologues and Barbero-style anti-Capital orations, hit the mark. «Ilaria, Ilaria, we must support Ilaria» they repeat in the exclusive circles animated by Milly Moratti and Line Sotis.
So much so as to worry quite a bit the wing of the Democratic Party that supports the leftist Cecilia Strada: she too is disheveled, she too has a certain grunge taste in her outfits (“Ilaria, Ilaria, we need to help Ilaria. It’s a shame she dresses badly”, she sighs with her intimate the queen of bon ton Sotis). But you want to add pathos: the only persecution that Strada can claim is the expulsion from Emergency (which was also endorsed by the founding father). Salis, on the other hand, was in prison, and moreover in Budapest. And for “anti-fascism” (“Anti-fascism, anti-fascism!”, Pericoli&Pirella would write), or at least for brawls between fascists and “antagonists”, categories that are equally abusive.
Of course, her red-green sponsors of Avs, the Fratoianni&Bonelli party, half-admit, “the tension has dropped a bit” since the girl (40 years old but very well behaved) left the horrid Hungarian prisons – not that our are much better – and went to an apartment. From which, last night, you were also able to connect via live video to speak at the closing event of the electoral campaign. The emotional impact is a little different, the image of the new Silvio Pellico (“Silvio, Silvio!) has weakened a little.
Even among his listmates, it would seem: a few days ago the heartbreaking appeal of Smeriglio, the outgoing MEP who left the Democratic Party due to anti-Ukraine “pacifism” and is now a candidate with Avs, fell on deaf ears: “If she is not elected we must commit to resigning so she can take over”, he said. Aimed more than at himself (he aims to be elected in his Lazio) at the frontrunners in the North-West and in the Islands: Ignazio Marino and Leoluca Orlando. Who, however, made it known that he doesn’t even talk about it.
