The brother-in-law and close political ally of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has warned that Italy’s low birth rate and an increase in irregular immigration could lead to “ethnic replacement,” sparking anger from the country’s opposition

Francesco Lollobrigida remarks comes 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

He made the comments at a conference on Tuesday, where he said that incentives to have more babies, suggested by Meloni, did not mean women had to stay home to raise them

“The way is to build a welfare system that allows you to work and have a family, supporting young couples to find employment,” he said. “Italians are having fewer children, so we’re replacing them with someone else. Yes to helping births, no to ethnic replacement. That’s not the way forward”[…]
Lollobrigida said that while he was not against controlled immigration, noting his grandfather emigrated to Italy, irregular migration is a threat

“If there are requests for a workforce, when you have exhausted the internal demand, you can, you must provide a workforce that also comes from other countries. It must be clarified that the first enemy of regular immigration, made through organized flows, is illegal and clandestine immigration,” he said