A founding member of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) and President of the Italian Senate since 2022, La Russa’s career illustrates the institutional continuity between the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) and the contemporary nationalist right. Born in Paternò, Sicily, and raised in Milan, he came from a politically engaged family. His father, Antonino La Russa, served as a deputy for the MSI during the early years of the Italian Republic.
La Russa joined the MSI’s youth movement in the 1960s, becoming one of its most active organisers in northern Italy. Like many of his generation within the party, he was influenced by Giorgio Almirante’s strategy of preserving the ideological legacy of Fascism while operating within the framework of parliamentary democracy.
In 2012, following AN’s dissolution and the fragmentation of Berlusconi’s political bloc, La Russa co-founded Fratelli d’Italia alongside Giorgia Meloni and Guido Crosetto. Within FdI, he has acted as both ideological guardian and institutional strategist, ensuring continuity with the MSI’s historical identity. La Russa has drawn controversy for displaying relics and memorabilia from the Mussolini era and for remarks seen as revisionist.
As President of the Senate, La Russa occupies one of the highest offices of the Italian Republic, symbolising the long-term normalisation of post-fascist actors within state institutions. His political trajectory encapsulates the evolution of the Italian far right, from a marginal movement of ideological heirs of Fascism to a governing force embedded within the structures of republican democracy.
