[Aljazeera] Rome, Italy - At his political rally in Milan in March, Italy's far-right Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini mentioned two women: the Virgin Mary, who, he said "will lead us to victory", and Oriana Fallaci, whom he described as "the founding mother of this Europe".One of Italy's most famous journalists, Fallaci, who died in her late seventies in 2006, covered the Vietnam War and interviewed the likes of Henry Kissinger, Indira Gandhi and Ruhollah Khomeini.
After September 11, she adopted an anti-Islam stance and today her legacy is enjoying a moment of renewed popularity.
In 2019 Italy, Fallaci's unapologetic Islamophobia is alarmingly mainstream. The new ruling class is rediscovering Fallaci as a prescient thinker.
Streets or squares have been renamed after her in Pisa and Arezzo, in central Italy, and Genoa, further north.
A public garden was also dedicated to her in Sesto San Giovanni, an industrial town close to Milan, where the mayor also blocked the construction of a mosque and recently mentioned Fallaci in his inauguration speech: "Her exhortations to the West to wake up still resonate today."