The controversy surrounding Volodymyr Zelensky's participation in the Sanremo Festival is igniting. The Ukrainian president will be a guest on the final evening of Saturday 11 February, he will speak via video link.
The no front is quite broad and also includes some unsuspected ones such as Carlo Calenda : "There are few doubts about our line of support for Ukraine, however I believe it is a mistake to combine a musical event with the message of the president of a country at war ", tweeted the leader of Action.
«We hope that Sanremo will remain the Festival of Italian song and nothing else. They will have made their assessments, what I hope is that the war will end as soon as possible and that the stage of the city of flowers will remain reserved for music », the words of Matteo Salvini .
Among the skeptics there is also Giuseppe Conte : «I was very happy when President Fico took the initiative to invite President Zelenski to confront the Italian Parliament to express his reasons and those of his people to the Italians – the leader said M5s -. Instead, I frankly don't believe that it is so necessary for President Zelenski to be in a light context like that of Sanremo ».
«In Sanremo – is instead the position of the mayor of Florence Dario Nardella – there has always been talk of political issues. The war in Ukraine has entered our homes, we talk about it at the table in the family, we talk about it with work colleagues, it is inevitable that it will also enter Sanremo ».
"Amazed" by the controversies Bruno Vespa . «I don't understand all this fuss about a brief intervention by Zelensky at the Sanremo Festival. High personalities from international politics took part and all social issues were dealt with, even thorny and controversial ones. Zelensky was a guest at the Cannes and Venice festivals, as well as at the Golden Globes, and I am sorry for this malice towards a man who is fighting with extraordinary courage to save the freedom of his own people from a very heavy aggression".
A group of intellectuals signed a protest manifesto and announced that they will take to the streets in Sanremo on 11 February: « We have learned with incredulity that Zelensky, head of state of one of the two countries fighting the bloody war in Donbass, will intervene. A terrible war », write in the document signed by Franco Cardini to Carlo Freccero, by Joseph Halevi to Moni Ovadia, by Paolo Cappellini to Alessandro Di Battista. A war, they write again, "fomented by irresponsible arms shipments and unmentionable economic and geostrategic interests, which has complex reasons, including the fact that NATO has gone to bark at Russia's borders (using the words of Pope Francis)" .
(Unioneonline/L)