Italy and post-election scenarios – Italy’s elections, with the non-victory of the center-left, suprising growth of the 5 Stars Movement and the revival of the center-right, attracted the attention of the major papers of the foreign press. There were numerous reports and comments, all in an attempt to understand the lessons to be learned from the results of the elections. Their primary concern was explaining and listing the possible outcomes of the elections. Between February 26 and March 1 these included pieces in the Financial Times (Bersani opens talks to break deadlock; Les Echos (Italie : trois options pour sortir de la crise); Le Figaro (En Italie, seule une grande coalition peut éviter le chaos); Bloomberg Businessweek (Parties may struggle to form government in Italy); El Mundo (Bersani y Grillo pueden recurrir al ‘modelo siciliano’ para evitar la parálisis en Italia); Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Grillokratie). The articles discussed options and possible solutions. The foreign press was also bent on discovering the Grillo phenomenon, with detailed identity scans and stories about the Movimento 5 Stelle and a guide to the movment’s ideas, such as the concept of “old” and “new” politics, the web and the M5S slogan “one is worth one”. This all appeared in The Guardian (Meet the Grillini: young, civic-minded and female); La Nacion (Beppe Grillo. “Ésta es una revolución sin sangre, fantástica”); El Pais (El laboratorio de Beppe Grillo); Clarin (Beppe Grillo, el cómico que se convirtió en una aplanadora electoral); Les Echos (Une victoire « casse-tête » pour Beppe Grillo); Le Monde (Les « grillini », 162 inconnus au Parlement italien); South China Morning Post (Comedian’s party no longer the standing joke in politics); Handelsblatt (Ein Komiker überrascht in der italienischen Nacht); Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Der Dauerredner); Die Welt (“Leck mich”-Beppe, der autoritäre Nihilist); Die Zeit (Grillo sollte abtreten, jetzt sind die “Grillini” dran); Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Überdruss als Programm).
There were, finally, human interest articles trying to explain the Italians’ ability to mistrust announced truths. Of particular interest was an article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times (25 febbraio – Italian Moments) also run in La Nacion (Los italianos, un pueblo que desconfía de las verdades únicas).
More fashion than politics: Milan Fashion Week – According to the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia, there was more fashion than politics on the streets of Milan. From the sidelines of political commentary, the Spanish paper and an article on the Milan Fashion Week (Feb. 24 – Más moda que política en las calles de Milán*) . Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo wrote that the catwalks were filled with a encounter between Italy and Asia (Feb. 26 – Passarelas de Milão trazem encontro entre Itália e Ásia), while the French paper Le Monde turned its attention to the collections: Giorio Armani’s line (Feb. 26 – Giorgio Armani, la ligne noire) and Prada’s chic, modern designs that fired the imagination (Feb. 23 – Chic et moderne, Prada excite l’imaginaire).
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