Controversy Erupts After Italian Minister Calls for Boosting Birth Rate to Avoid 'Ethnic Replacement' (Video)

Italian Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, warned that Italy’s low birth rate and an increase in irregular immigration could lead to “ethnic replacement,” sparking anger from the country’s left-wing opposition.

The brother-in-law and close political ally of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s remarks come in response to a recent report which found Italy has one of the world’s lowest birthrates with fewer than 400,000 births in 2022.

Lollobrigida’s comments were made at the national congress of Cisal Tuesday, where he discussed the issue of demographic growth and the importance of creating a welfare system that enables people to work and raise a family. Lollobrigida emphasized that boosting the birth rate is not about convincing people to stay at home more but instead creating an environment where young couples can find employment and build a future for themselves and their families.

The solution is to help young couples find employment. The answer is to enable everyone to read data that reveal that demographic growth and better state aid work side by side, even within our national territory.

We cannot yield to the idea of ethnic replacement. The ethnic replacement means: Italians have fewer children, so we replace them with someone else. That’s not the solution. In the regions with fewer welfare programs, a more significant demographic collapse is reported than in other regions.”

Lollobrigida stressed that ethnic replacement is not a solution and that immigration can be an opportunity for a nation’s economic growth. He argued that legal immigration, organized with regular flows of people, is the way forward, but illegal and clandestine immigration is the first enemy of legal immigration. He stated that his ministry is working to contain the major flows of migrants and create organized, triennial flows where migrants can be easily integrated into Italian society.

According to the Interior Ministry, Italy has had a record number of illegal migrants by sea this year, with over 34,715 people arriving as of April 19.

Lollobrigida himself is the grandchild of immigrants and emphasized that immigration is a natural, physical fact. But, he noted, “I am careful not to believe that emigration and immigration are a problem. Quite the opposite: they can become an opportunity for a nation’s economic growth. If there is demand for workers, when the internal workforce runs out, you will have to rely on a workforce that comes from other countries, too.”

Controversy

Many praised Lollobrigida’s views on immigration and demographic growth, stating that they provided a refreshing perspective on the topic. His commitment to finding solutions that benefit both Italian citizens and immigrants is commendable, centrist raved. However, Elly Schlein, the radical new head of Italy’s Democratic Party, described Lollobrigida’s statement as “disgusting” and “reminiscent of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.”

She accused Lollobrigida of reverting to the mentality of the 1930s, saying his words “have a flavor of white supremacism.” Schlein told reporters that she hopes Meloni’s government distances itself from his statements.

Italy’s low birth rate has been a key concern of Italy’s conservative government, which came to power in October 2022. Meloni campaigned on a platform that included a pledge to help Italians have children. She said Italy had failed to invest in incentives to boost the birth rate for too long.

Meloni has been concerned about Italy’s dying dwindling population for years now. In 2016, she said that “ethnic replacement” [known as the Great Replacement] is in progress due to the arrival of 153,000 immigrants, primarily African men, in Italy. She stated that the government is attempting to “destroy our European and Christian identity with uncontrolled mass migration” and that organizations help refugees neglect the starving Venezuelans of Italian origin.

Jean Renaud Gabriel Camus, co-founder and President of the National Council of European Resistance, is a French writer known for having coined the phrase “Great replacement” — referring to the reported colonization of Western Europe by immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.

Great Replacement

According to a report by Gatestone, Italy and much of Europe will undergo significant demographic shifts in the coming decades. As the native European population ages and fails to reproduce at replacement levels, there is a growing influx of migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. These newcomers bring with them vastly different cultural values related to sexuality, science, political power, economics, and the role of religion in society. The result is a Europe that may become unrecognizable within a single generation.

As reported previously at RAIR, by 2050, “twenty percent of the European population will be Muslim due to Western Europe’s pursuit of multiculturalism and mass migration.” 

In 2050, a third of Italy’s population will be foreigners, according to a UN report, “Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Decline and Aging Populations.”

Italian think-tank Fondazione Fare Futuro predicts that half of Italy’s population could be Muslim by the end of the century due to mass migration and the different birthrates of Christians and Muslims. In just ten years, the number of migrants in Italy has surged by 419%.

With each passing day, it becomes increasingly challenging to deny that the ultimate objective of mass migration is to undermine and eventually obliterate the distinctive cultures of local and national communities. The evidence of the last few decades demonstrates that the legal systems, cultural norms, and fundamental principles of equality that have long served as the foundation of European and North American societies are eroding at an alarming pace. Adding to this distressing reality, political correctness often supplants the rule of law and individual liberties, aiding in the execution of the “great replacement” by punishing any form of criticism.