Aleading hard-Right candidate for the European Parliament has been condemned for using a gesture in support of Mussolini’s fearsome commando unit. General Roberto Vannacci, a novice Italian politician, was filmed urging voters ahead of this week’s election to mark their ballot with “a Decima X” while crossing his hands. The Decima Mas, or X MAS, was a fascist squad of marine commandos that attacked British and Allied forces in the Mediterranean during World War II and later Gen Vanacci’s brazen reference to them comes amid growing support for the far Right ahead of the elections, which take place from June 6 to 9, as voters look to more radical solutions to deal with the rising cost of living, the energy crisis and illegal migration. Meanwhile in France, Jean-Yves Queinnec, a former election candidate for France’s Front National Party, was arrested for making a Nazi salute and shouting “Heil Hitler” during a debate about immigration. Polls forecast the two radical Right-wing parliament groups, Identity and Democracy and the European Conservatives and Reformists, will add between 30 and 50 seats, to rise to 22 to 25 per cent from their 18 per cent share now. Gen Vannacci, a decorated veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is running as a candidate for the far-Right League Party. It follows his suspension earlier this year by Georgia Meloni’s government for publishing a book denigrating immigrants, feminists, homosexuals and environmentalists.
via msn: MEP candidates caught performing Mussolini torture gestures and Nazi salutes