Muslim socialite splits Italian right

A Muslim model with political ambitions is prompting Italians to confront the issue of how ready they are to let immigrants integrate into their society. Before she has even chosen a party, Tunisian-born Afef Jnifen has driven a wedge into the Italian right.

A week ago, the 41-year-old Ms Jnifen was living an uncontroversial life punctuated by appearances at celebrity parties and society weddings. After a career on the catwalks for Armani, Valentino and Roberto Cavalli, Ms Jnifen married the Pirelli and Telecom Italia boss Marco Tronchetti Provera, and seemed destined to spend the rest of her days trapped in the pages of Italy's gossip magazines.

But last weekend she took part in a rally organised by a small centre-left party and accused Italy's second-highest-ranking dignitary of incitement to religious hatred. Marcello Pera, speaker of the senate and the man who would become head of state if President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi were incapacitated, warned last month that immigration could produce a "mongrel" Europe.

Mr Pera, who is a friend of the Pope, is a leading supporter of the idea that Europe must reaffirm its "Christian roots". He wrote the introduction to the pontiff's latest book, The Europe of Benedict in the Crisis of Cultures.

Ms Jnifen said his remark amounted to "anti-Islamic instigation". She added: "Italians are more tolerant than Pera."

It was the first in a string of soundbites that suggest Ms Jnifen's looks are not all she has to offer the left as it tries to unseat the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, at next year's general election.

She has inveighed against "those who confuse faith with fanaticism" and declared herself ready to make "Italy loved in the Arab world and the Arab world loved in Italy".

The leader of the party whose rally she compered said he wanted her to stand for parliament in Mr Pera's constituency. The organiser of the opposition alliance described her as an "important and significant" candidate.

The threat has been acknowledged differently by the openly xenophobic Northern League, one of four main parties in Mr Berlusconi's coalition.

Its official daily newspaper led with a report on Ms Jnifen's political debut under the headline Mongrel candidacies, and parodied her mission as "Let's mongrelise Italy".

Other government supporters who welcome immigrants seeking integration were appalled. Ms Jnifen, who arrived from France 13 years ago and is now married for the second time to an Italian, is an outstanding - albeit atypical - example of integration.

Earlier this week she declared: "I am, and I feel, an Italian."

One of Mr Berlusconi's best-known supporters, the director Franco Zeffirelli, appealed to his countrymen not to see her as "someone trying to lay siege to our culture and traditions".

On the contrary, she was trying to build a "bridge of friendship and understanding", he wrote in Corriere della Sera.

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