Italy plans to limit foreign students per class, Giorgia Meloni says

Italy’s centre-right coalition government has moved to counter the surge of the ultranationalist National Future party, with prime minister Giorgia Meloni proposing new education laws that would place more restrictions on foreigners.Meloni’s government will propose a limit on the number of foreign students per classroom and ban burqas and hijabs in Italian schools, she said at an event of the youth wing of her Brothers of Italy party.“A ‌measure ‌will ​soon be presented to a Cabinet meeting to legally establish a maximum number of foreign students per class. It also ⁠requires parents of foreign ​students facing serious difficulties integrating into the ​school system to learn Italian and bans burqas and niqabs in schools,” ‌Meloni told an annual gathering of the ​youth wing of her Brothers of Italy party.“If there is only one ⁠child in a class who ⁠doesn’t understand Italian, ​that child will likely be able to learn the language and integrate quickly with the help of classmates and teachers. However, if the number of children who don’t understand the language becomes large - or even the majority - that is no longer integration; it is neglect,” she added.READ MOREMeloni did not specify what the maximum number of foreign students ‌per class would ⁠be.The ruling coalition is grappling with the rapid rise of Roberto Vannacci’s National Future movement, which some polls now show as the second-strongest right-wing political group after Brothers of Italy, ahead of a general election expected next year. Meloni’s government last week moved to scrap a road tax, in a step widely seen as appeasing voters who have grown increasingly frustrated with spiraling energy prices.A 30 per cent cap on foreign students per classroom is already set out in a ministry directive, but it has never been implemented. About 12 per cent of total students in Italy are non Italians, according to data published by Corriere della Sera Monday, so far from a possible limit eyed by the new laws.As the far-right grows in prominence, Meloni’s coalition partner and deputy Matteo Salvini is also seeking to boost consensus within his own League party. Speaking at its annual rally in Pontida on Sunday, he said he will propose an extraordinary party congress for October to confirm him as leader, in a bid to quell internal party rifts.“We win ‌when ‌we ​are united, and the League is, and will be, more united than ever,” Salvini told the party’s annual rally in the northern town of Pontida on Sunday, ⁠saying the congress would be in October, ​just 18 months since the last one was ​held.Salvini, who has led the League since 2013, transformed a movement once centred on Italy’s wealthy ‌northern regions into a national far-right force, taking ​it to a record 34 per cent in the 2019 European Parliament election.However, he has long been overshadowed by ⁠Meloni, while critics including Attilio Fontana, governor ⁠of the Lombardy region around ​Milan, are increasingly questioning his leadership while advocating a renewed focus on the party’s northern roots.“By holding a congress now, Salvini has a chance to reinforce his legitimacy before the next election and limit the ability of his critics to campaign against him over a prolonged period,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a politics professor at Luiss University in Rome.“He is trying to exploit the fact that his (internal) opponents currently lack a frontman,” he added.Italy is due to ‌hold elections in the second half of 2027. - Reuters and Bloomberg