WHO IS GIORGIA MELONI?

Growing up in the Garbatella area of southern Rome, Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the neo-fascist political party Italian Social Movement (MSI) in 1992. MSI was created in 1946 by supporters of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. She later became the national leader of the National Alliance (AN) student movement.

The 45-year-old Meloni won her first local election at 21 and became Italy's youngest minister ever at 31 when she was handed over the youth portfolio in Silvio Berlusconi's 2008 government. 

Meloni's biggest political gamble occurred in 2012 when she and some of the AN veterans left Berlusconi and co-founded Brothers of Italy. She became its president in 2014.

A right-wing populist and Italian nationalist, her political positions have been described as far right. Meloni compares her party to the US Republican Party and the UK's Conservative Party, in which patriotism and family values are exulted, while political correctness and global elites are criticised.

Meloni still embraces an old slogan adopted by Mussolini's fascists: "God, fatherland and family". She has also spoken out against the "LGBT lobby" and called for a naval blockade of Libya to halt migration.