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| Italian Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini (R) meets with five children who helped to save other children during the March 20, 2019 Milan bus attack, saying they deserve Italian nationality (AFP Photo/Tiziana FABI) |
Rome (AFP)
- Foreign children on the school bus hijacked near Milan last week are to be
awarded Italian nationality, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said
Wednesday after a week-long debate.
The
dramatic police rescue of 51 children on the bus hijacked by their driver of
Senegalese origin on March 20 has gripped Italy and rekindled debate about its
citizenship laws.
"If
there are children who are not Italian citizens, we have studied this question
and we will complete the process so that they can become Italian," Salvini
said after meeting five of the children and some of the police who saved them
in Rome.
Salvini
from the anti-immigrant Lega party stressed that the nationality would be
awarded "without any variation in the law, since the law exists and works,
we do not change it."
Children of
foreign parents who are born in Italy can only apply for citizenship when they
reach 18.
It is not
known how many of the children are concerned, but 14-year-old Ramy, born in
Italy to Egyptian parents, and 13-year-old Moroccan Adam played key roles by
calling police during the hijacking.
The driver
doused the bus in petrol and said he would set it alight, taking what he
thought was everyone's mobile phone and heading for Milan airport in what he
said was a protest against Salvini's tough anti-migrant policies.
'Like my
son'
As some
Italians and Ramy suggested changes to the citizenship law, Salvini had earlier
told the boy: "Get elected and then you can make the law."
 |
Italian Deputy
Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini (R) chats with Ramy, one
of the
five children who helped to save other children during the March 20, 2019 Milan
bus attack, whom Salvini says is "like my son" (AFP Photo/Tiziana
FABI)
|
Salvini
quickly said he would try to take away the Italian nationality of the arrested
bus driver, which he acquired by marrying an Italian, thanks to a tough
anti-immigrant decree which became law last year.
The
previous centre-left government said it would change the law to make it easier
to grant citizenship to foreigners born in Italy but the law was never passed.
Salvini
insisted that he himself had decided to give the children nationality, after
his coalition partner from the Five Star Movement Luigi Di Maio said he had
changed Salvini's mind.
Salvini
slammed what he called "the political manipulation of these children"
before saying that Ramy was "like my son" and that he had "shown
he has understood the values of this country".
He also
paid homage to a 13-year-old Italian boy who offered himself as a hostage while
his friends were "in panic, crying and praying."
"He is
a young Italian so I can't even give him double-Italian nationality,"
Salvini said.
"As a
father myself, I said to him, 'Are you crazy?' And he told me: 'It was the
right thing to do'. At 13... Hats off."
According
to the most recent data, Italy naturalised 146,000 foreigners in 2017, more
than any other European Union country, including 54,000 minors who became
adults.
Nationality
is a sensitive issue in Italy which is undergoing a birthrate crisis.
Legally
resident foreigners represent 8.5 percent of the population, rising to 9.7
percent of children under 10, 13 percent under five and 14.5 percent of
children born last year.
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