Italian PM Giorgia Meloni responded to criticism from Prime Minister Trudeau by calling him a “victim of fake news.”
On Thursday during the G7 leaders summit in Japan, Prime Minister Trudeau called out Meloni as she sat next to him with a stunned look on her face.
“Canada is concerned about some of the positioning that Italy is taking in terms of LGBT rights, but I look forward to talking with you,” Trudeau said in front of reporters and Meloni.
Meloni and Trudeau later spoke behind closed doors. Since then, she has responded to Trudeau’s criticism by stating that since she’s become PM, her government hasn’t passed any legislation related to LGBT rights.
Meloni said Trudeau’s remark “doesn’t correspond to reality.”
“He was probably a bit rash in making this statement. I have explained that we have not taken any action on this matter,” she said.
“I think Trudeau was a victim of fake news and he realized it himself.”
The Brothers of Italy leader Meloni became the country’s first female Prime Minister in a September election where she captured about 26% of the votes. The right-of-centre coalition government ran on “God, country, and family.”
Meloni has previously said she was running against the “LGBT lobby.”
Same-sex couples in Italy cannot marry. In March, Meloni’s government instructed city councils to only register the biological parent among families with same-sex couples. The move effectively limited parental rights among gay couples to the biological parent only.
After Meloni won the election, a speech she made in 2019 resurfaced and went viral. In the speech, Meloni states the importance of family as a national identity and said globalist enemies want to destroy it all.
“They attack national identity. They attack religious identity. They attack gender identity. They attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No. I must be citizen x, gender x, parent 1, parent 2, I must be a number. Because when I am just a number, when I no longer have an identity, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer.”
