Xenophobia in Italy: a fortress fights to keep out poor

The name fits the place. Cittadella, a town 40 miles inland from Venice, is a true citadel, one of only three cities in Europe which preserve their medieval walls intact. The historic centre is enclosed in a perfect circle of high 13th-century masonry, with battlements, towers, entrance gates at the four points of the compass, and a moat.

But while medieval walls give a powerful sense of protection and enclosure, and make for excellent picture postcards, they no longer keep unwanted people out. And keeping unwanted people out is very much on Italians' minds just now, less than a year after Romania joined them in the European Union.

Now Cittadella has become the first town in Italy to lay down who may not live in it: namely the poor, the unemployed and the homeless.

This is Italy's second spasm of xenophobia in a month. At the beginning of November, after the nasty mugging-murder of a middle-class housewife allegedly by a Roma youth on the outskirts of Rome, the capital's mayor, Walter Veltroni, forced through a diktat giving the central government the power to expel foreigners for reasons of "public security". All foreigners, including those from the EU, were covered by the new decree; no trial was required, only a decision by the local prefect that the people in question were a menace.

For a couple of weeks the expulsion idea was all the rage. Mr Veltroni is a former communist but in no time the post-Fascists had taken up the cry, demanding that tens of thousands of foreigners be summarily booted out. At least 200,000 should be expelled from Rome alone, according to Gianfranco Fini, the former deputy prime minister under Silvio Berlusconi and the acceptable face of Italy's far right. In practice the expulsion idea has so far proved a damp squib: mass expulsions were quickly ruled out, with Pope Benedict one of a chorus of voices warning Italy not to go down the road of racism and paranoia. So far those expelled nationwide number in the low hundreds.

But now, from the opposite end of the country, comes a different idea for tackling the problem: don't let the immigrants into your citadel-city to begin with. "The people feel insecure," says Cittadella's mayor, Massimo Bitonci, by way of explanation for the rules he has imposed on foreigners who might fancy moving to his town. Aged 42, an accountant by profession with an open countenance, a reassuring smile and friendly manners, Mr Bitonci has, for the past three weeks, been collecting a silly number of headlines and television appearances for a man who is the mayor of a pretty little town with a population of barely 20,000 where nothing much happens.

It all began on 16 November when his office published an ordinance spelling out the rules of residence in Cittadella for Italians, non-Italian members of the EU, and others. The novelty of this resided in the idea that the mayor of a small town might assert the right to say who could and could not live within his town's borders. Cittadella has never in its history had that right. When the walls were built in the 13th century, it was already a fraction of the city of Padua, 20 miles to the south. From 1405 it came under the sway of Venice – for centuries one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe.

But Mr Bitonci is demanding that right now. He belongs to the Northern League, the party led by the demagogic Umberto Bossi whose original slogan was Roma ladrona! (Big thief Rome!) and which campaigned for the secession of northern Italy from the south. Now, in a few pages laden with legal cavils, the mayor spelled out that foreigners coming from within the EU have the right to live in Cittadella only if they had no criminal record, were in regular work with an income per family member of at least €5,000 (£3,600) per year, and had a home conforming to standards set down by the town.

For the first time in 800 years, Cittadella was making an attempt to live up to its name.

Reaction to the ordinance was swift and harsh. "A decidedly racist and discriminatory measure which violates civil and constitutional rights," said the government's minister for social solidarity, Paolo Ferrero, of the regulations. The rules evoked "a climate of medieval obscurantism" , according to Andrea Martella, a centre-left MP from Venice. "This ordinance is merely an act of propaganda which takes us back centuries, with the aggravating factor that, like a dangerous virus, it is poised to spread to other towns governed by the centre-right and the Northern League."

Events quickly proved Mr Martella right. When I visited Mr Bitonci in his gleaming modernised town hall within Cittadella's walls, four days had passed since the publication of the ordinance and he was aglow with the applause of other Northern League mayors from the region. "The idea I launched was immediately taken up by the mayors of many other small towns like ours in the region," he said. "So far 40 mayors from Veneto and Lombardy have phoned in to say they support me."

The townspeople, he said, were right behind him, too. "There is a great popular consensus on this proposal, which I consider to be an obvious, almost banal thing: in any democratic state a foreigner can move from one place to another but he should have a minimum of financial wherewithal, a respectable place to live, and above all he should not have a criminal record."

Racism had nothing to do with it, he insisted. "This is a small town, and until a few years ago there were hardly any immigrants here. There were one or two Moroccans who had been here for decades. They were well integrated; they had families; some were married to Italians without any problem. But this is a difficult moment."

Italy's new mood dates from the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in January. "Now we have 15 new applications for residency per week, 60 per month, 600 per year, and 80 per cent of them foreign," said the mayor. "It's a real invasion. The great majority are Romanian: of 1,423 immigrants who are regular residents, 416 are Romanian. And I'm only talking about people who are legally resident: there are another 40 or 50 per cent who are here illegally, and they certainly do not have proper places to live. And all the other towns around here have the same problem."

The immigrants, he claimed, had brought a crime wave. "This used to be an island of happiness. Thirty years ago here in the countryside, people didn't even lock their doors at night. There were problems connected to drugs but it was very limited. But there has been an increase in crimes against property, especially in recent months."

Walking the elegant lanes of Cittadella's ancient centre, "island of happiness" didn't seem too bad a description for it now: signs of crime and degradation were hard to spot. A visitor unaware of the controversy would conclude that this was a wealthy, complacent little place, with all the charms of small Italian towns, the trattorias and osterias, the boutiques offering panetone and liqueur chocolates. And if the locals really do back Mr Bitonci's ordinance, they were coy about admitting it. "I'd really rather not talk about it," said one woman. "Not interested," said a bearded man, who then called back: "I don't think the ordinance is going to work, anyway."

"Not efficacious": that is also the view from Padua, Cittadella's big brother to the south. "The decision taken by Cittadella will have no effect," said the mayor, Flavio Zanonato.

A rhetorical solution for an imaginary problem? Not as far as Mr Bitonci is concerned. "According to a recent opinion poll, three Italians out of four these days feel insecure," he said. "The public mood is one of grave disquiet."

In another attempt to calm that mood – or milk it for political advantage, take your pick – Mr Bitonci's administration in September set up vigilante patrols in the town with more than 60 volunteers taking turns in small teams to cruise through the town. They soon plan to add two teams of armed security guard patrols to the roster, though they have yet to catch any criminals in the act.

Less than a week after the publication of the ordinance, the Italian state had its say: the new rules were illegal, a usurpation of public functions which the mayor does not possess, and he received notice that he risked being put on trial for the offence.

It was a red rag to the Northern League bull: last weekend more than 40 mayors and some 4,000 supporters poured into Cittadella to roar their support for Mr Bitonci. The effulgent mayor was there in the front line, complete with the Italian tricolour sash which mayors wear as their badge of office adorned with a black cockade – a sign of mourning, he said, "for the death of the Italian state".

From the platform, Flavio Tosi, mayor of Verona, roared: "[The Interior Minister] Giuliano Amato says Cittadella cannot be a republic in its own right. Dimwit Amato, come here and see how the people in Veneto live! [The Prime Minister Romano] Prodi cannot command in our house: only the mayors can decide who they want in their towns."

Amid the bilious rhetoric, a few obvious facts had difficulty making themselves heard.

Such as the fact that the overwhelming majority of immigrants move to Italy in a state of poverty because they want to become less poor. That Italy's very low birth rate means that its economy is dependent on a constant flow of new arrivals to survive. That a large proportion of immigrants work in the illegal sector and live in lousy accommodation – but not from choice.

And that within living memory, millions of Italians were poor immigrants in North and South America. And that they had to contend with exactly the sort of poisonous attitudes Mr Bitonci is encouraging as they struggled to make good, far from home.