The Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, did not shy away from the question either, who also sought an answer to the question of how to make immigrants into "real and useful" citizens. It was even suggested that Ukrainian refugee children attending Italian schools in the last two years should also be given citizenship.

Nearly five hundred and sixty thousand students could be affected if immigrant children attending schools in Italy were granted citizenship according to a bill, the Tuttoscuola education portal calculated, while Matteo Salvini, the president of the League, repeatedly said no to the possibility.

According to Tuttoscuola's calculations, sixty percent of immigrant students currently participating in compulsory education could receive citizenship. We are talking about those who have studied at an Italian school for at least five years, so they are older than ten years.

More than eighty percent of them live in the northern regions of the country, less than fifteen percent in the south.

    If the parliament votes on citizenship for immigrant children attending school, more than 300,000 students could take advantage of the opportunity in the first year of the law, and more than 260,000 more in the next four years.

The opposition Democratic Party (PD) took the foreign-born Italian athletes participating in the Olympic Games in Paris as an example, which from mid-August is advocating for the citizenship of immigrant children and youth who come to Italy with their families or who were born in the country.

The PD plans to submit a bill in September. The party initiates so that children of immigrant families can apply for citizenship.

It is a condition that the children complete the five-year elementary school or, if they arrived in Italy after the age of 12, the three-year upper school.

In recent days, the right-wing government party Italian Brothers (FdI) has firmly rejected the proposal several times, stating that the issue is not considered a priority for the country and is not included in the government program. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing League, stated again on his social media page on Thursday that he says no to citizenship for children born in Italy and attending Italian schools. On his social media site, Salvini published a recording from years ago, in which former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the Let's Go Italy (FI) party, said that some immigrants "hate Christians, Western culture, the Italian state (..) while supporting terrorism , therefore they cannot be granted citizenship just because they go to school".

Matteo Salvini sent a message to his ally, Antonio Tajani, the current leader of the center-right Hajrá Italy, who showed openness to citizenship (Latin: ius scholae) for school children at the international Catholic meeting in Rimini on Thursday.

Previously, Tajani said that, among other things, they could grant citizenship to Ukrainian refugee children who have been attending Italian schools for the past two years.

    "It is not the color of your skin that determines whether you are Italian, but whether you share European values. It doesn't matter if your parents were born in Kiev, La Paz or Dakar"

Tajani stated. He added that he has no intention of opening the door to anyone.

The Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, did not shy away from the question either, who was also in Rimini looking for an answer to the question of how to make immigrants into "real and useful" citizens.

At the same time, in the northeastern Veneto, the Democratic Party launched a provincial-level initiative to grant citizenship to school-going immigrant children. There are approximately one hundred thousand foreign students in the region of nearly five million, and seventy percent of them were born in Italy.

MTI

Cover image: MATTEO SALVINI AND GIORGIA MELONI / Photo: Il Primato Nazionale