Fascist sympathisers gather in Mussolini’s birthplace amid fresh controversy over ‘Roman salute’.
Around 1,000 people marched on Sunday in Predappio, in Italy’s northern Emilia-Romagna region, where Italian fascist dictator Mussolini was born and is buried.
The event is held each year to mark the anniversary of the March on Rome, on 28 October 1922, which gave rise to the fascist regime in Italy.
Many of those present wore black, recalling Mussolini’s Blackshirts, and there were also some families there with children.
The rally was organised by the great-granddaughters of Il Duce, Orsola and Vittoria Mussolini, who had appealed against any public displays of straight-armed fascist salutes.
Instead, people were urged to place their hands on their hearts during the ceremony when participants shout “Present!”, the traditional response to the commemoration of “fallen comrades”, a rallying cry associated with the Italian far-right.
The appeal by the Mussolini family to avoid violating Italy’s “apology of fascism” laws came in light of court rulings and legal precedents.
However members of the neo-fascist Forza Nuova political party openly ignored the appeal, encouraged by their leader Roberto Fiore, with dozens raising their right arms.
Oltre mille persone al raduno di Predappio, tornano i saluti romani. Per commemorare la Marcia su Roma hanno sfilato nel comune natale di Mussolini #ANSA pic.twitter.com/4jylvoUuTN
— Agenzia ANSA (@Agenzia_Ansa) October 26, 2025
Forza Nuova had attempted to hold a separate march to Mussolini’s crypt at the San Cassiano cemetery, however police banned the move and the group ultimately decided to join the official procession.
Responding to the tense situation, Orsola Mussolini told reporters that the event was “complicated by the presence of a political force I won’t even name, but it created unfavourable conditions just to gain visibility, while we are gathered here for a moment of prayer.”
Fascist salute laws in Italy
In April 2024, Italy’s top court said that a fascist salute may be a crime even if performed during a commemorative event, clarifying an ambiguous ruling earlier that year.
The cassation court clarified that a number of factors must be considered when evaluating whether the stiff-armed salute constitutes a crime, and that making the so-called saluto romano during a commemoration does not automatically “neutralise” the offence.
These factors include the setting and its “symbolic value” and the degree to which the location it is linked – or not – to the fascist era, the number of participants, the “insistent repitition” of the gesture and the “danger of emulation”.
The court’s clarifation came after it ruled last January that the fascist salute could be considered a crime only “under certain conditions”, including if performed in circumstances that risk a “concrete danger” of reviving the banned Fascist party.
In such cases, the court ruled that judges can apply the 1952 Scelba Law against “apology for fascism” and attempting to restore Mussolini’s Fascist party.
The court ruled that the fascist salute could also be considered a crime if it posed a risk to public order under the 1993 Mancino Law which permits the prosecution of those involved in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination and the incitement of hate crime.
Acca Larentia
In January this year, Rome police launched an investigation after hundreds of men performed the fascist salute during an annual commemorative event in the Italian capital.
The Acca Larentia event is held every year to commemorate the 1978 killing of three members of the youth wing of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), a percursor to the right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party led today by Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who has commemorated the killings in the past.
Earlier this month, a preliminary court hearing was scheduled for 9 December for 31 people, all members of the extreme-right CasaPound group, who performed the Roman salute at last year’s Acca Larentia event, with prosecutors alleging violation of the Mancino and Scelba laws.
