Giorgia Meloni is Italy’s great political survivor. Could one man be about to bring her down? | Riccardo Alcaro

Giorgia Meloni’s government became the longest serving in Italy’s republican history last month. This unusual political longevity, a moderate foreign policy, a certain personal charisma and even a recent spat with Donald Trump have combined to sharpen Meloni’s profile as the go-to leader on the European right.

Meloni’s personal approval rating – at about 41% – is one of the highest among west European leaders. Her far-right Brothers of Italy party has retained most of its support – a striking feat in our anti-incumbent era and by Italian standards, an achievement.

Yet all this may not suffice for her ruling coalition to be returned to power at Italy’s next election, in 2027.

Even before this week’s riots in Milan, Meloni’s greatest challenge was emerging from her far right, in the form of a new movement led by the former army general, Roberto Vannacci. The firebrand demagogue will, like Marine Le Pen in France, certainly seek to exploit the unrest to promote his party’s law-and-order credentials. If he succeeds, it could come at the expense of Meloni’s ruling coalition.

Vannacci was a high-ranking officer of almost 40 years’ service when in 2023 he self-published Il mondo al contrario (The World Turned Upside Down). Filled with hyper-conservative misgivings about such supposed western ills as cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and feminism, Vannacci’s book became a sensation and the general was suspended from the armed forces.

But Vannacci’s extreme positions and abrasive style quickly made him a regular media presence, and with public attention came political interest. Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League and a junior partner in Meloni’s coalition, calculated that pulling the general into his ranks could boost his dwindling ratings. Salvini’s instincts were not wrong: in 2024 Vannacci was elected to the European parliament. However, he soon quit the League and this year founded a new far-right party, National Future, to which, polls suggest, the League has been losing support, imperilling Meloni’s coalition’s chances of re-election.

Electoral logic and a common ideological background would point to a Meloni-Vannacci alliance, but Vannacci’s ideological extremism makes that difficult.

Vannacci has made the “remigration” of foreign nationals – an idea promoted by such radical forces as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – a central plank of his programme. While opposition to migration is one of the defining features of Meloni’s government, it has never gone that far.

Vannacci’s emphasis on the traditional family is so uncompromising that he proposes giving parents additional votes in elections and an advantage in public recruitment. His programme insists that abortion “is not a right” while it promotes the so-called “Mediterranean patriarchy”, and advocates abolishing the specific crime of femicide. These positions sit uneasily with Meloni’s politics, which combine conservative values with her own self-image of female empowerment.

The sharpest divide relates to foreign policy. Vannacci aims at easing the burden of eurozone fiscal discipline and opposes plans for greater defence integration. Tellingly, he has joined the AfD-led Europe of Sovereign Nations grouping in the European parliament, a group shunned even by Salvini’s League, the most nativist member of the Meloni government. On Russia and Ukraine, the gap is wider still. Echoing the AfD, Vannacci has argued that Russia is not an imminent threat to Europe and has called for the reopening of trade and diplomatic channels with Moscow, including by buying Russian gas. Vannacci also opposes support for Ukraine. For Meloni, by contrast, backing Ukraine is a pillar of her international positioning, most recently attested by her open criticism of Trump’s decision to waive sanctions on Russian diesel exports, ahead of a hard winter for Ukraine.

Meloni’s reluctance to enter an alliance with Vannacci is understandable. Forza Italia, her centre-right coalition partner, fears it would drive away the moderate conservative vote. The League is so shaken that some of its members want to disavow Salvini’s nativist ideology and go back to the party’s roots, representing the interests of business and local communities in Italy’s northern regions.

For the time being, Meloni has responded to the far-right challenge by doubling down on migration. Vannacci’s presence in the electoral wings explains some of the background to her suspension of the Schengen free-movement rules for air and sea passengers from Spain after the Ceuta tragedy. The same applies to the recent decision to put a 30% ceiling on students of foreign origin in schools. But it is far from certain this strategy can work, and pressure to strike a deal with Vannacci may build, not least to prevent the former military man from claiming to be the only politician promising a hardline law and order response to vandalism and looting in Milan. Meloni’s dispatch of 500 troops to the city ahead of further planned cost-of-living demonstrations was aimed partly at taking the wind out of Vannacci’s sails.

While an alliance could increase Meloni’s chances of re-election Vannacci would be a restive and unreliable coalition partner.

The alternative is to delegitimise Vannacci as a nationalist force, pointing to his extremism and proximity to Russia. Meloni would hardly regain the most extreme nativist voters lost to Vannacci but could convince a section of the moderate electorate to choose her coalition over centrist parties.

This strategy entails a real risk that Meloni will lose the next election. Still, the onus is on her now to articulate why Vannacci’s mix of anti-EU nativism, homophobia and misogyny is incompatible with both her own brand of national conservatism and Italy’s place in Europe. Doing so would send a powerful message that the commitment to the EU’s democratic principles – and European cohesion – is a moral red line. It is also one that can be imposed by conservative nationalists like Meloni on fringe forces to their right. As the now-seasoned leader figures out how to juggle her political ambition against the challenge posed by Vannacci, she should consider how high the stakes are, not just for Italy, but for all of Europe.

• Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali, in Rome