Matteo Salvini is an Italian politician who has served as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport since 2022.
60 Facts About Matteo Salvini
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Matteo Salvini has been Federal Secretary of Italy's Lega Nord party since December 2013 and an Italian senator since March 2018.
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Matteo Salvini has been considered a hardline Eurosceptic politician, holding a starkly critical view of the European Union, especially of the euro.
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Matteo Salvini opposes illegal immigration into Italy and the EU as well as the EU's management of asylum seekers.
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Matteo Salvini is considered one of the main leaders of the populist wave which shook Europe during the 2010s and a member of the neo-nationalist movement, which is a rightist ideology that emphasizes de-globalization, nativist and protectionist stances.
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Matteo Salvini was previously a strong supporter of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, describing Putin in 2019 as "the best politician and statesman in the world".
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Matteo Salvini was born in Milan in 1973, the son of a business executive father and a homemaker mother.
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Matteo Salvini studied at the Classical Lyceum "Alessandro Manzoni" in Milan.
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Matteo Salvini later attended the University of Milan where he first studied political science before switching to history.
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Matteo Salvini has sometimes claimed that, as a teenager, he used to visit the left-wing self-managed social centre Leoncavallo.
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In 1990, Matteo Salvini became a member of the Lega Nord, the regionalist and separatist movement founded by Umberto Bossi in 1989.
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Matteo Salvini was an active member of Young Padanians Movement, LN's youth faction, of which he became city coordinator for Milan in 1992 and city secretary in 1997.
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In 1999, during an official visit of Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in Milan, Matteo Salvini refused to shake his hand, stating that Ciampi did not represent him.
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Matteo Salvini was elected with 14,000 votes a Member of the European Parliament for the North-West region in 2004 and participated in the European Parliament as a part of the Non-Inscrits.
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Matteo Salvini was then re-elected city councilor in Milan, in the municipal election of that year, with over 3,000 votes.
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Matteo Salvini stood down from the European Parliament in November 2006.
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Matteo Salvini ran in the 2008 general election and was elected in the Chamber of Deputies for the constituency Lombardy 1.
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Matteo Salvini was a substitute on the Committee on International Trade and the delegation for relations with South Africa.
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On 2 June 2012, Matteo Salvini became the federal secretary of the Lombard League, defeating Cesarino Monti with 403 votes against 129.
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Matteo Salvini was later elected deputy in the 2013 general election, but he renounced his mandate on the first day of the legislature, and was replaced by Marco Rondini; Matteo Salvini maintained the position of MEP.
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In September 2013, Roberto Maroni, secretary of LN and Matteo Salvini's mentor, announced he would soon leave the party's leadership.
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Ahead of the 2014 European Parliament election, Matteo Salvini started to cooperate with Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, and Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom.
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On 28 February 2015, Matteo Salvini led a rally in Rome protesting against illegal immigration.
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On 21 December 2017, Matteo Salvini presented the new electoral logo of the Northern League for the 2018 general election; for the first time since its foundation the party ran in all the constituencies of the country, using a logo without the word "Northern".
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The League became the party with the most votes in the centre-right coalition and thus Matteo Salvini was de facto chosen as coalition's leader; the centre-right won a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate; however, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.
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On 21 May 2018, Di Maio and Matteo Salvini proposed the professor of private law Giuseppe Conte for the role of Prime Minister in the 2018 Italian government, despite reports in the Italian press suggesting that President Mattarella still had significant reservations about the direction of the new government.
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Matteo Salvini proposed the university professor Paolo Savona as Minister of Economy and Finances, but Mattarella strongly opposed him.
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Matteo Salvini founded the European Alliance of Peoples and Nations on 8 April 2019.
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On 1 June 2018, Matteo Salvini was sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior.
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Matteo Salvini immediately stated that his main aim was to drastically reduce the number of illegal immigrants to Italy.
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On 16 June 2018, Matteo Salvini said, "These people should know that Italy no longer wants to be any part of this business of clandestine immigration and they will have to look for other ports to go to", adding "As minister and as a father, I take this action for the benefit of all".
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On 18 June 2018, Matteo Salvini announced the government would conduct a census of Romani people in Italy for the purpose of deporting all who are not in the country legally.
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On 19 June 2018, Matteo Salvini announced his intention to conduct a compulsive racial census of Italians to register Roma people, while stating that Roma who are Italians could "unfortunately" not be deported.
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The opposition leader Matteo Orfini reacted by suggesting Salvini should rather do a "census of racists and fascists".
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Matteo Salvini refused to allow the ship to dock until other European nations had agreed to take the migrants.
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Matteo Salvini accused Rackete of trying to sink an Italian patrol boat that was attempting to intercept her, calling the incident an act of war and demanding the Netherlands government intervention.
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Matteo Salvini's alleged gambit failed, as Conte successfully negotiated the formation of a new cabinet with centre-left Democratic Party.
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In February 2021, Matteo Salvini supported the League joining the national unity government of former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, together with the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement, Forza Italia and other minor centre and centre-left parties.
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On 22 October 2021, Matteo Salvini was recorded during a closed-door meeting saying that Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party "should remain the opposition without breaking our balls".
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Lega leader Matteo Salvini became deputy prime minister in her government.
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Matteo Salvini defended the claims, and said his actions only went as far as protecting Italy.
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Matteo Salvini had been accused of urging violence against Carola Rackete for calling her a criminal.
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Also in May 2021, Matteo Salvini sued media magnate Carlo De Benedetti for defamation in Cuneo, Piedmont.
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Matteo Salvini has been described as hard Eurosceptic, holding a starkly critical view of the European Union, especially of the euro, which he once described as a "crime against humanity".
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On social issues, Matteo Salvini opposes same-sex marriage, civil unions and adoption as well as anti-discrimination laws, while he supports the legalisation of brothels.
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Matteo Salvini disowned the retweet, claiming it was posted by a staffer by mistake.
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Matteo Salvini accused France of "stealing wealth" from former African colonies and generating mass migration to Europe.
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Matteo Salvini supported the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar prior to taking office on the grounds that Qatar funded terrorism.
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Matteo Salvini has called for stronger Italian ties with Morocco, describing it as "the most stable country in the entire Mediterranean", and criticising an EU resolution that accused Morocco of using migration as political pressure towards Spain.
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Matteo Salvini has been critical of Iranian policy towards Israel, and expressed scepticism towards the Iran nuclear deal.
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Matteo Salvini considers Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, contradicting the official stance of the Italian government.
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Matteo Salvini supported recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and in January 2020, he stated his support for moving Italy's embassy in Israel to the city.
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Matteo Salvini endorsed the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential election, Donald Trump, whom he met in April 2016 in Philadelphia.
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In September 2018, Matteo Salvini pledged his support for The Movement, a European populist group founded by Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
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Matteo Salvini condemned the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and said he wanted to help Ukrainian refugees and support the countries that accepted them.
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Matteo Salvini was confronted for his past support of Putin by Wojciech Bakun, the mayor of a Polish town Przemysl, while visiting its refugee center during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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In September 2018, Matteo Salvini endorsed conservative nationalist candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election that year.
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In 2001 Matteo Salvini married Fabrizia Ieluzzi, a journalist who worked for a private radio station, by whom he had one child in 2003.
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Matteo Salvini later became engaged to Elisa Isoardi, a popular TV host.
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Matteo Salvini is nicknamed "The Captain" by his supporters.