Gioventù Nazionale


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Gioventù Nazionale (National Youth, GN) is one of Fratelli d'Italia's (Brothers of Italy, FdI) far-right youth groups, which operates throughout Italy via over one hundred regional, provincial, and metropolitan sections. Founded in May 2014, two years after the founding of FdI, GN's purpose is to popularize "the feeling of national identity" among the upcoming generations of Italians, in adherence to "the spiritual and traditional values of the Italian people." Furthermore, GN espouses a commitment to "the historical heritage of values of the Italian right-wing," or interwar Italian Fascism and the post-World War II organization, the Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI). Having been founded by FdI, which views itself as the twenty-first-century successor to the dissolved MSI, GN's logo features a number of striking similarities with the logo for the MSI's neo-fascist youth group, the Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front). Both logos, for instance, feature a "forearm whose hand grips a tricolor flag" (N/D).

GN made the headlines in June 2024 following the release of a video report by Backstair, the investigative wing of the Italian news platform Fanpage.it, which dismantled GN's façade as a politically "moderate" youth group by exposing its members' racism, fascist apologism, celebration of Benito Mussolini, and praise for the far-right political terrorism of the Years of Lead (1968-82). Backstair's footage revealed GN members performing the fascist salute at commemoration ceremonies, despite Giorgia Meloni's frequent assurances that Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) – and its youth groups – have rejected Fascism (Backstair 2024). In 2023, the welcoming banner on the homepage of GN's website showed a group of its members with their arms raised in a rigid Roman salute (Cheles 2023: 127).

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