ROME — General Roberto Vannacci launched Futuro Nazionale on June 14, staking out a hardline nationalist platform that directly challenges Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hold on the Italian right ahead of the 2026 elections. The 57-year-old former paratrooper, introduced by a party official as a modern-day Julius Caesar, was greeted with chants as he spoke at the movement’s inaugural congress.
Vannacci, who left Matteo Salvini’s League four months ago, cast his party as the voice of Italy’s disenfranchised and pledged to push a more uncompromising agenda than Meloni’s conservative coalition. Polls put Futuro Nazionale near the 5 percent mark, close enough to complicate Meloni’s path to a renewed majority unless she negotiates an alliance, a move that could risk alienating moderate voters wary of Vannacci’s anti-EU and pro-Russia positions and his ties with far-right European parties such as Germany’s AfD.
On immigration, Vannacci proposed a dramatic reduction in the foreign-born share of the population, aiming to cut it from around 12 percent today to roughly 4 percent. “We don’t have a programme for immigration, we have a programme for re-migration,” he declared to applause. Security and law-and-order measures topped his list of priorities, including tougher penalties for criminals and plans to build more prisons despite Italy’s low rates of violent crime.
Futuro Nazionale’s platform echoes several policies Meloni once championed while in opposition but diverges sharply on Europe and climate policy. Vannacci called for a debate over Italy’s membership of the euro, advocated abandoning the EU’s Green Deal, and proposed lifting the country’s ban on nuclear energy. The programme also includes family incentives such as tax cuts for households with children.
While accusing Meloni of abandoning earlier promises, Vannacci tempered his stance by acknowledging flexibility: “No plan survives the first shot in battle… it has to be adapted to reality,” he said. His entry reshapes the dynamics on Italy’s right and sets up a potentially fractious contest as parties prepare for next year’s national vote.