Mimmo Lucano: “The AVS should put Youssef Siher forward as a candidate. He would be a symbol.”

“It would be great if AVS were to put Youssef Siher forward as a candidate. He would be a symbol. I’d like to have him as a colleague.” Mimmo Lucano, MEP for the Alliance of Greens and the Left, told Il Foglio. Just the day before yesterday, the administrator of the Telegram channel “Movimento 17 ottobre” – set up following two days of unrest in Milan – was released from San Vittore prison, reigniting the clash between the government and the judiciary. “They’re criminalising him to use him as a scapegoat for the unrest. But he’s got nothing to do with it,” comments the mayor of Riace, where Lucano held a press conference yesterday on the very subject of refugee reception. “In fact, Siher is a good lad, a scholar, a political scientist. He’s half Moroccan and half Italian; he’s an asset to Italy,” he continues. “In Parliament, he’d put many of his centre-right colleagues to shame.”

Lucano appeals to Angelo Bonelli and Nicola Fratoianni, who certainly already have plenty of ‘symbols’ amongst their candidates. One such example is Lucano himself, the mayor of the Calabrian municipality who had made the widespread reception of migrants his hallmark, as well as Ilaria Salis (his colleague in Brussels), who ended up in prison in Hungary on charges of assaulting neo-Nazi demonstrators in Budapest in 2023. Also arriving in Rome under the AVS banner were Ilaria Cucchi, sister of Stefano, who died after being beaten by two carabinieri, and finally Aboubakar Soumahoro, the symbol of the fight against illegal labour recruitment, who entered the Chamber of Deputies with muddy boots. In addition, Lucano would like Bonelli and Fratoianni to bring Sigfrido Ranucci, another symbol, into Parliament, as he told Il Foglio at the AVS party in August. Today he is pushing for the young Siher. The Honourable Siher.