The Debate – Berlusconi’s way: State funeral for populist who transformed Italy

Issued on: 14/06/2023 – 20:07Modified: 14/06/2023 – 20:13

Berlusconi was the original politically incorrect populist, who pounced on the privatisation of Italian television in the 1980s to bring soaps, sports and mild titillation to masses bored of the old Catholic-Communist cultural divide. Long before Donald Trump, he made the jump from media to politics and surfed a wave of transgression that changed Europe for good.

Did he outlive his times? Italy’s current leader Georgia Meloni – whom Berlusconi plucked from obscurity when he picked her for his cabinet back in 2007 – is now firmly in power thanks to votes that once went to his party. Has the country drifted to the far right, or were they always birds of the same feather?

More broadly, what will politics look like after Il Cavaliere?

Produced by François Picard, Xenos Alessandro, Imen Mellaz, Meiqi An