Controversy erupted over the remarks of Family Minister Eugenia Roccella at the UCEI conference "History Upended and the Future to Be Built," held at the National Council for Economic and Social Work (CNEL) in Rome

"Anti-Semitism," Meloni's government representative reasoned, "has found justification in the final phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for its resurgence and re-legitimization. The relish with which the word genocide is used, throwing it back in the faces of those with well-documented and precise experience of the genocide, is truly shocking. Anti-Semitism in our country hasn't been fully addressed. All those school trips to Auschwitz—what were they? Were they trips? What purpose did they serve? They served, in my opinion, they were encouraged and valued, because they actually served the opposite purpose. That is, they served to tell us that anti-Semitism was something that concerned a time now established in history, and located in a specific area: fascism." "And so the problem," he added, "was being anti-fascist, not being anti-Semitic"

"So, I think the problem today is to come to terms with our anti-Semitism, to come to terms with our past without deluding ourselves that everything was refined in a single historical era and political area, something I find difficult to sustain, " Roccella reiterated