Mattarella "with all due respect, madam, you are not my president": words said by a policeman to one of the pro-Palestine demonstrators who took to the streets in Milan last Saturday, despite the bans, and immortalized in a Localteam video have sparked controversy and a storm on the military.
The force has decided to immediately transfer him to a non-operational position and the Milan prosecutor's office, awaiting information, will open a case.
Now the carabiniere, a chief marshal, apologizes.
But in the video, in the short conversation with the protester, Franca Caffa, former municipal councilor of the PRC, born in 1929, founder of the Molise-Calvairate-Ponti tenants committee, her words regarding Mattarella are reiterated.
Caffa had asked the policeman if she knew what the president had said, namely that Israel should not deny the Palestinian people the right to a state.
"I was shocked by the response", said Caffa, who will also demonstrate next Saturday because "it's about wanting the right policies".
The old woman, in the front row to be a "witness in the event of a truncheon attack", did not give up and, faced with those words against the Head of State, urged the policeman: "What country is he from?".
At that point the soldier was clearer on the point: "I didn't vote for him, I didn't choose him, I don't recognize him".
At the time Franca Caffa did not reply but continued to ask herself "why did he dare to say that? Even if she does not agree with Mattarella's way of acting as president, and this is legitimate, the fact remains that he is the president of everyone".
The now transferred carabiniere, in addition to apologizing, explains: "Mattarella is my symbol - he says - I found myself saying a stupid and not really thought out phrase but my priority was to remove an elderly lady from problems caused by possible charges".
Those who know him, says Antonio Tarallo, general secretary of the Italian Carabinieri trade union union, describe him as "a joker who may have said those words too superficially, so we need to understand whether he believed in what he said or whether it was a way to cut short with the demonstrators".
In any case it was a "serious" episode for the mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala.
"None of us who work for the institutions and who feel like an institution, therefore the mayor but also a policeman, can afford to say something like this. Furthermore - he underlined - compared to a president like Mattarella, who in recent years has demonstrated a firmness, capacity and lucidity that are extraordinary and fundamental for this country".
"Very serious words" according to Debora Serracchiani, an "inconceivable" fact for the Democratic Party senator Graziano Del Rio.
The senator of the Green and Left Alliance Tino Magni has instead announced that he will ask the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto to intervene but the Army Command has already made it known that it will order the "immediate" transfer of the soldier to a non-operational position and has announced that "all necessary measures, including disciplinary measures", will be taken against him.
In the meantime, the judiciary has become interested in the matter.
The Milan prosecutor Marcello Viola was informed directly.
He is now expecting an information from the police and the video will be analysed.
Then the case will be registered against the policeman.
At the moment the crime of "offending the honor or prestige of the President of the Republic" can be hypothesized, but the prosecutors will have to make assessments by examining all the material.
"I feel sorry for this man. But his words - concluded Caffa - did not seem to me to be on the side of the people, they showed a lack of conscience. They made me lose heart".
The protester: 'Shocked by the policeman's words'
Franca Caffa was "disconcerted" when the policeman, whom she had addressed during the pro-Palestine demonstration last Saturday in Milan, told her that "Mattarella is not my president": "Why did he dare to say that? Even if he doesn't agree with Mattarella's way of acting as president, and this is legitimate, the fact remains that he is everyone's president", the former PRC municipal councilor, born in 1929, founder of the committee, explains to ANSA tenants Molise-Calvairate-Ponti, who in Sant'Ambrogio received the certificate of Civic Merit from the municipality.
She took to the streets because "it's about wanting just policies", also "in coherence with the tragic story of the persecution of the Jews" which now "should not be repeated to the detriment of the Palestinians. On the day of remembrance, let's be consistent with remembrance: enough persecutions".
For this reason she assures you that she will be in the procession again next Saturday and for this reason on January 27th she stood in the front row in front of the police cordon and started talking to them.
"I established a certain relationship with them, of conversation. I thought we could talk and try to reason. And I think it worked. I even caressed one of them", she says, underlining that "only one" responded by distancing himself by the Head of State.
"I feel sorry for that man - she concludes without commenting on his transfer announced by the Army - Maybe my way of proposing myself for an open interview had an effect on him".
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