Marzabotto and the honorary citizenship awarded to Francesca Albanese. The mayor of Cesena: “Those who receive it should unite, not divide.”

Another controversy has arisen regarding the countless honorary citizenship titles conferred on Francesca Albanese in recent years by a number of Italian municipalities. After the UN rapporteur came under heavy criticism last December for her comments on the attack on the offices of the daily newspaper La Stampa – comments on which she subsequently backtracked – several cities, including Bologna and Florence, decided to suspend or revoke the award. Others, however, have not wavered from their course. The latest of these is Marzabotto, in the Bolognese Apennines, where Albanese will receive honorary citizenship on 23 September.

“She must be a unifying figure. In my view, this is the most important quality for anyone receiving honorary citizenship, and I do not believe that Francesca Albanese embodies this quality,” Enzo Lattuca, mayor of Cesena, told Il Foglio. “Her shortcoming is that she is disliked by those who hold different views to her.” In the capital of Romagna, the proposal to grant Albanese honorary citizenship was put to a vote and rejected at the start of the year. The crux of the matter, for the mayor, is not the views of the UN rapporteur: “I believe there is a very large majority of Italians who, due to their own sensibilities, find themselves taking a harsh view of the Israeli government,” he continued, “which is more than enough to justify honorary citizenship for those who represent this view.”

For Lattuca, however, the fundamental issue remains the ability to engage with those who hold different views, managing to ‘bring people together across the board’. The mayor cites the trade unionist Luciano Lama, a fellow countryman, as a shining example of this quality: ‘He did an outstanding job, recognised even by business leaders. He was able to reach out to Italians, tapping into the most widely held sentiments’. Albanese, by contrast, “sometimes even divides those who support the Palestinian cause”, whilst representing a widespread sentiment, but “in a manner that is more divisive than unifying”. Lattuca then clarifies that his opinion is in no way intended to discredit the work carried out by the UN rapporteur in recent years, nor does it imply a less critical stance towards Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish state’s military operations.

For the mayor, a member of the Democratic Party (PD) now in the middle of his second term, the granting of honorary citizenship is, however, first and foremost the result of a democratic process. “There are no clear-cut guidelines, as there are for the election of a senator,” explains Lattuca, “if the Marzabotto Town Council has approved the measure following a comprehensive assessment, it is right that it should proceed in this direction”.

The Marzabotto case is also the subject of discussion at regional level: this morning, the Chair of the FdI group in Emilia-Romagna, Marta Evangelisti, tabled a question to the regional executive, asking for its official position on Marzabotto’s decision, whether state sponsorship or the use of public funds is envisaged for the ceremony, and “whether it considers that such initiatives risk compromising the universal, impartial and institutional value of the historical memory of the victims of Marzabotto”.

The name of this small town in Emilia carries profound historical significance, as it is associated with one of the darkest chapters of the Nazi occupation. Between 29 September and 5 October 1944, German troops led by Albert Kesselring laid waste to the entire surrounding area with a series of attacks on the population, killing a total of 1,830 people.