Last farewell to David Sassoli, the president of the EU Parliament who died in recent days. At 12 the state funeral in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli with the highest offices of the state and the presidents of the Commission and the EU Council von der Leyen and Michel. Yesterday there was an uninterrupted crowd at the funeral parlor set up in the Capitol. Draghi on Monday in Strasbourg for the commemoration at the plenary of the European Parliament.
The colleagues from his life as a journalist, those with whom he shared his political career up to the presidency of the European Parliament, and then many ordinary people. Yesterday about 4 thousand people paid homage to David Sassoli at the funeral parlor set up in the Capitol, with Bach's sacred music in the background and in the atmosphere a general emotion for the disappearance of a person "an example for the political class - to quote the cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the CEI -. Peace, solidarity, openness towards others, all brothers, this was his life program ". While in Rome the funeral home was about to close, in Brest, in the north-west of France, Sassoli was remembered with a minute of silence by European diplomacy at the top of EU foreign ministers,with Luigi Di Maio who underlined the "huge void" left by this disappearance. A commemoration will be held on Monday afternoon in Strasbourg, at the plenary of the EU Parliament, in which Prime Minister Mario Draghi should also participate.
And today there will be the highest European offices, in addition to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, at the state funeral, at noon in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri (300 guests inside, a large screen outside). Meanwhile, Sassoli's widow and her two children were comforted by the affection and thoughts of family, friends and many who met the politician and journalist during his career, who died at the age of 66 in the night between Monday and Tuesday.
Tight hugs, of those that the pandemic has made rare, a mild balm to the suffering of mourning. Tears that wet the masks. Flowers deposited near the numerous flower crowns, from those of the institutions to the one sent by Nancy Pelosi. Even some selfies in the queue, stigmatized by a wave of criticism on social media that also touched the photos published by Enrico Letta and Giuseppe Conte, in meditation in front of the coffin. Draghi and Mattarella were among the first to the funeral parlor. Then the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, who with Sassoli was one of the 'boys of Zac', the DC generation of Zaccagnini, and who convinced his friend first to enter politics and then in 2009, as secretary of the Democratic Party, to stand as a candidate to the European Parliament. The pickets of honor of former RAI colleagues, of the leaders of the Democratic Party, are movingof dem MEPs and of those who until a few days ago worked closely with Sassoli in the European Parliament, starting with Maltese Roberta Metsola, vice-president who took over the interim presidency.
In front of the coffin and smiling portrait of Sassoli with the EU flag behind him, an uninterrupted queue for eight hours of ministers, authorities, politicians from every party, from Giorgia Meloni ("He was loyal, he respected his opponents, I will miss him") to Antonio Tajani, passing through Gianni Letta, welcomed by the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri. Then the mayors of Anci, Rai faces like Monica Maggioni, Bianca Berlinguer, Bruno Vespa. And also many common people and friends: enlightening, always kind, the most recurring adjectives. Supported by a stick and her sister, Lucia Tomassetti, 91, also presented herself, a veteran of the bombing of 19 July 1943 on San Lorenzo, the first of the allies on Rome in the Second World War. "We had met him at a commemoration - the sisters said after the hugs with the Sassoli family - he will be missed by us and the whole country. With him in Europe we felt protected ".
