“Mario, what are you doing, are you leaving me alone?” – Corriere.it

The book by Bruno Vespa «The great storm. Mussolini, the civil war. Putin, the energy blackmail. The Nation by Giorgia Meloni », 390 pages, 21 Euros. We publish a passage from the eleventh chapter (And a woman came to Palazzo Chigi).

«Mario, what are you doing? Aren’t we serious? Do you go away and leave me alone? ». It is noon on Sunday 23 October 2022. Giorgia Meloni jokes with Mario Draghi during the bell ceremony, where the passing of the baton from the outgoing premier to the incoming one takes place. At the end, Draghi goes down to the courtyard of Palazzo Chigi to receive the military farewell honors and the Meloni is left alone in the presidential office with her two long-time collaborator friends, the assistant Patrizia Scurti and the spokesperson Giovanna Ianniello. “I knew this room well,” the Prime Minister tells me immediately after, who likes to be called by the name of the office declined in the masculine, which would then be a neutral word. “I had been there many times during the Berlusconi government. But this is the first moment when I ask myself: what happened to me? What am I feeling? Satisfaction, of course, but above all anxiety, because the impact is heavy ». Now the small study (eighteenth-century desk, sitting room, meeting table for a few people) must seem immense to you, because immense are the responsibilities that have fallen on this small and determined woman to whom, in life, no one has given anything. A study that, however, does not make her feel at ease. She doesn’t like golds, damasks, the balcony overlooking Piazza Colonna. She doesn’t like her, jealous as she is of her freedom, the suffocating protocol and the idea of ​​being followed at every step, of making every meeting immediately public knowledge, since the walls of Palazzo Chigi have always been hearing and talking. . So much so that Meloni has jealously kept her magnificent and decentralized office in her room, with a terrace that happened to her by mistake and that everyone envies her.

Giorgia Meloni takes a seat in a gold-colored armchair to catch her breath with a coffee in the moments preceding the first Council of Ministers. He confesses that he feared he was crying with emotion as he reviewed the picket in the courtyard and heard the officer shout: “Honors to the Prime Minister!” Francesco Valdiserri, the eighteen year old hit by a drunk woman while walking with a friend on the sidewalk of via Cristoforo Colombo. (Francesco’s mother, the journalist of the Corriere della Sera Paola Di Caro, has been following the center-right for many years and the habit with Giorgia Meloni has been transformed over time into friendship). She was moved on Saturday 22 October when, leaving the house for consultations, she saw that from the building opposite a man she did not know was waving the tricolor flag. And she was moved on the afternoon of the same day when, going with her mother Anna to the Grandparents’ Day at the school attended by her daughter Ginevra, although she sneaked in to gain the last row, she was greeted by a great applause that left the priest who, intent on speaking, had not seen the presidential family enter.

And mother Anna? I ask Meloni. «She has never been a ceremonious woman» she tells me «but she sent me a tearful message: I thought I had done nothing in her life and instead…» about her Her inseparable sister Arianna? «She always cries. I owe you a lot. She has always been close to me ». And Geneva? “One evening she came and, for the first time, she called me president. “President, I have a present for you.” And he offered me some chocolates. “Now what are you doing, how is your job?” “Geneva, do you remember the class leader? Well, now I am the leader of a very long line… ”». Can you accompany her to school? «Always and, after a hard battle, on my historic Mini. I prefer not to go to school with the service car. I wear tracksuits because, whenever possible, I go back to training ». In any case, she never considered the idea of ​​moving the family to Palazzo Chigi in the ugly presidential apartment, remaining in the old Garbatella house.

Try to relax, Giorgia Meloni, waiting to preside over the first Council of Ministers (I peek into the hall: how many old acquaintances and how many new entries). It still seems impossible to her to have gotten this far. (…) Giorgia Meloni feels she is playing away from home in the Palazzo, that in the first meeting of the Council of Ministers she says: «Too many birds of ill omen hover over the government. Let’s give a unanimous answer: we are a nice surprise for Italy ».