Serious, popular, besties with Trump: Italy's Meloni marks three years as PM

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni marks three years in office this week with her far-right party more popular than ever, her government remarkably durable and the economy stable, if not exactly booming.

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US President Donald Trump greets Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a summit on Gaza in Sharm El Sheikh on October 13. — AFP FILE

(AFP FILE)

"She’s a serious person," said Giulia Devescovi, a 31-year-old doctor who joined a rally with hundreds of supporters of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party in Florence earlier this month.

"She’s perhaps one of the best prime ministers since Silvio Berlusconi," she told AFP among a sea of Brothers of Italy flags.

Meloni is way off the late Berlusconi’s record of nine years as prime minister, but her coalition stands out for its longevity among the 70-odd postwar governments in Italy.

Her party tops opinion polls with support levels consistently above the 26 percent it secured to win 2022 elections, which saw Meloni installed as Italy’s first woman prime minister on October 22 that year.

In three regional elections in recent weeks, her party increased its support, even in Tuscany, a bastion of the left.

Headlining the campaign event in the picturesque Piazza San Lorenzo in central Florence, Meloni railed at the left who she said were happy to see Italy confined to junior partner to EU giants France and Germany.

She particularly noted the economic progress of her indebted country, emphasising that borrowing costs are now lower than those of France.

"A leading nation like Italy doesn’t act as anyone’s spare tyre," she declared to cheers and applause from the crowd.