Francesca Pascale: "Go on and attack Ranucci on any issue, but not on sex." And if Sigfrido is a Don Juan, "Lavitola was a poacher"

Rome. Keep your martyr, leave us the satyr. The only Ranucci who inspires any sympathy in us these days is perhaps the one suffering from satyriasis. The filthy, scruffy bloke. The lecherous reporter, behind the civil hero. But whilst there are already those on the right who are turning him into a martyr – through a purge – there is no shortage of people to cap it all off by calling him a pig. We were and are all whores, yes, but what, then, are Berlusconi’s children and siblings? The liberal, libertarian newspapers and female journalists who are resurrecting the #MeToo movement just now that Conte has buried ‘woke’? “I am opposed to Ranucci in every single respect,” tells us Francesca Pascale, who loved the sinner Silvio – now a saint – so dearly. “I’m against him, his agenda, his world, but I’d never attack him on a sexual level.” 

They’re really giving him a hard time about that. “They’re attacking him from the right, because it’s all just political posturing.”

Yes. And in fact, there are female journalists who write about rather unsavoury dinners in the Prati neighbourhood, and then ‘out’ – as they say – other female colleagues, without their consent, claiming that ‘the Satyr’ had made advances towards them. “And they accuse him, just as the Left once accused Berlusconi, foaming at the mouth.”

Yesterday ‘Olgettine’, today ‘nuns’? “I don’t agree with this approach. I’d never do it. But let’s be clear: Ranucci is getting a taste of his own medicine. And those attacking him have learnt the trick from him.” Of course. Ranucci isn’t SigSilvio and he isn’t Bill Clinton. But… “But we shouldn’t be talking about his sex life, I agree. If anything, we should be focusing, once again, on his dealings with Valter Lavitola, who was a poacher.” Absolutely! What a man! “Yes! I can assure you there are photos of Lavitola standing over the carcasses of lions and other protected animals.” Ranucci the Don Juan and Lavitola the poacher? “Exactly. And who knows what Giulia Innocenzi, the director of the documentary Food for Profit, thinks about it.” Who knows. Let’s hope we can ask her. “Ranucci’s ties with Lavitola and Lavitola’s treatment of animals are very serious, I mean. Certainly not Ranucci’s relationships with women. Even though he accused Silvio of far less and is as much of a hypocrite as the entire universe that supports him, from *La Repubblica* to *Il Fatto*.”

It’s not ‘Il Cav.’, as we’ve said, but our own Abbé Pierre. Ranucci fought for justice and got up to all sorts of mischief. But, Francesca, shall we forgive him? “Well. There’s no such thing as a moderate right-wing anymore, and the line taken by right-wing newspapers on Ranucci and women isn’t mine… However, I understand their point of view too. It’s the other side of the coin.” As she speaks to us, Francesca Pascale is on her way to Brindisi, where she’ll be meeting Antonio Tajani, partly to discuss this: “I’ll tell him the party’s in disarray.” As for Sigfrido… We’ll forgive him. “You lot are too lenient.” Yes. Heaven forbid that, like all former sinners ennobled by martyrdom, we should find him sanctified once again.