Anger sparked by Minister's Italian anthem insult

Opposition parties on Monday called on the government to sack Reform Minister Umberto Bossi after the populist Northern League leader gave the finger to the Italian national anthem at the weekend.

Bossi, whose party wants devolution of powers to the regions, was speaking at a Veneto League congress on Sunday when he hit out at a line in the anthem which appears to say Italy is the slave to Rome.

''Never again slaves to Rome,'' the minister said, raising his middle finger.

Politicians from the Socialist Party and Italy of Values called on Bossi to resign on Monday, while Democratic Party opposition leader Walter Veltroni said he expected Premier Silvio Berlusconi to ''strongly condemn'' his ally's comments.

''I expect the government to distance itself very clearly,'' he said. ''It's unacceptable to say, as Berlusconi has on other occasions, that Bossi is just a colourful character''.

House Speaker Gianfranco Fini called on Bossi to explain himself ''as soon as possible''.

''Like the national flag, the anthem is a symbolic element of the state and as such must be respected,'' Fini said.

''Nobody, particularly not a minister, should say anything that offends the anthem's national feeling,'' he added.

Senate Speaker Renato Schifani said he would ask the government for an official explanation of the minister's actions.

Bossi also came under fire from colleague and Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa of the rightwing National Alliance, who said he should apologise to Italians.

''If Bossi really thinks it's right to insult national identity, which forms the basis of efforts by so many young people in uniforms defending freedom and the safety of missions abroad, I wouldn't want to sit side by side with him and other ministers from the League in cabinet meetings,'' La Russa said.

He also said Bossi had misunderstood the meaning of the anthem, which was written in 1847 by Goffredo Mameli, a patriot of the Risorgimento uprisings who died defending the short-lived Roman Republic in 1849.

La Russa explained that the line does not mean Italy is slave to Rome, but that Rome should secure victory, like a slave, in its bid for a united Italy - eventually declared in 1861.

But Industry Minister Claudio Scajola of the centre-left Forza Italia party dismissed the polemics.

''Bossi has his own special language when he talks at his assemblies. People need to understand that,'' he said.

Bossi also received support from his Northern League colleagues who said the offending line in the anthem was ''indigestible'' for Italians living in the north.

''We've been slaves to Rome for too long and we don't want to be any more,'' said League MP Mario Borghezio.

Bossi added fuel to the fire on Monday by saying that he had ''never liked'' Mameli's anthem from when he was a schoolboy.

''I can't stand that word, slave. We are in favour of abolishing all incarnations of slavery, and the north - Lombardy and Veneto - must not be slaves of anyone,'' he said.

Bossi proposed that Italy instead adopt as its anthem a song written about the Veneto's River Piave, a symbol of Italian World War I heroics, which he said ''always moved him'' and was more similar to France's anthem La Marseillaise.

ICONIC LEADER NO STRANGER TO POLEMICS.

Even after a serious stroke in 2004 which left his speech impaired, Bossi, 66, remains the iconic leader of the regionalist Northern League.

He coined the phrase 'Roma Ladrona' (Thieving Rome) to criticise the concentration of power in the capital and has long fought for greater autonomy for the northern regions.

No stranger to polemics, he once opened an unofficial 'northern parliament' and has played media stunts such as a mystical journey along the Po in search of northern Italy's 'Celtic roots'.

As minister for devolution and reform under the last Berlusconi government, he spent much of his time pushing reluctant allies to approve a controversial constitutional reform package including the devolution of many powers to the regions.

The reforms were rejected by a referendum last year and the League made devolution a condition for remaining Berlusconi's ally in the current administration.