REMEMBERING STÉPHANIE AND DANIEL'S MARRIAGE

A Princess Reborn

An Expectant Stephanie of Monaco Says She Has Found True Love with Daniel Ducruet—The Man Who Was Once Her Bodyguard

AS THE WILD CHILD OF THE GRIMALDI FAMILY, Princess Stephanie, 27, is a longstanding favorite among those who savor tabloid tales about troubled royals. Since 1982, when she was injured in a car wreck that killed her mother, Princess Grace, Stephanie has fluttered from one infatuation to the next in a seemingly desperate search for love. Stints as a fashion model, swimsuit designer, perfume peddler and chanteuse have alternated with giddy interludes in the arms of beaux, including Rob Lowe, racecar driver Paul Belmondo, record producer Hon Bloom and Jean-Yves Le Fur, a French real estate developer to whom she was briefly engaged in 1990. She made her mistakes in public as she struggled to forge an identity beyond that of Princess Stephanie Marie Elisabeth of Monaco. "My whole life," she said recently, "has been nothing but tremendous doubt."

Now, to hear Stephanie tell it, life holds no more doubts. On May 15, the joyous Princess announced to a pair of French journalists that she is three months pregnant. The child, she said, was fathered by her former bodyguard, Daniel Ducruet, 27—a onetime member of Monaco's police force who now manages a seafood-distributing business. Divorced from his first wife in the mid-1980s, he has a 4-month-old son by former girlfriend Martine Malbouvier, 32. A Frenchman born in Monaco, Ducruet met the Princess when he was assigned to the palace security detail from 1988 to October 1991. A few months before he left the post, the two began to live together. Exulted the expectant mother: "Things are completely changed. It is a happiness of such intensity, there are no words to explain it."

By all accounts, Stephanie and Ducruet, who say they have no plans to wed immediately, are wild for one another. In an interview in her high-rise apartment in Monaco, the Princess (in brightly colored tights and a pullover) and her paramour—a well-built, athletic-looking sort—nuzzled and cuddled as they discussed the circumstances that brought them together. Said Daniel: "The first time we met...we exchanged a glance, and we couldn't stop looking at each other.... [And now] a baby is going to emerge from that lovely little belly...." Added Stephanie: "[Daniel] helped me greatly to grow up. He really loves me for myself. He has proved to me that I am the one who counts, not what I represent."

Friends say that Ducruet is a self-made man. In the words of one who knows him well, Stephanie's beau is "smart, witty and loyal." Says the friend: "Daniel's only problem, if it is a problem, is that he was born into a poor family." (Raised near the border in Beausoleil, France, he is the son of Henri, a manual laborer, and Maguy, a housewife.) Although Daniel attended the University of Nice for just a year, his friend lauds his "good business sense," and adds, "he's doing well with his company."

The talk of Monaco on the last weekend in May, the news of the Princess' pregnancy overshadowed both the 50th running of the Monaco Grand Prix and a gala dinner in honor of Prince Rainier's 69th birthday (an event attended by neither Stephanie nor her elder sister, Princess Caroline). It also eclipsed the persistent rumor that Caroline (widowed in 1990 when husband Stefano Casiraghi died in a powerboat accident) is wailing for the Vatican to annul her 1978 marriage to Philippe Junot in order to wed Vincent Lindon, a 32-year-old French actor.

Following Stephanie's announcement, magazines ran paparazzi shots of the fully swimsuited Princess (who usually bathes topless), her belly slightly protruding, frolicking with Daniel in the pool at the Monte-Carlo Beach Hotel. As it was Mother's Day in France, Le Journal du Dimanche wished Stephanie, "Happy Mother's Day (Future) Mother," even as it erroneously noted that the Palace had denied that Rainier's youngest was expecting.

Many observers wondered how the Prince had taken the news that he was to become a grandfather again. (Caroline is the mother of Andrea, 8, Charlotte, 5, and Pierre, 4.) But direct comment was not forthcoming. Said one palace source: "There will be no official statement [about the pregnancy]."

Stephanie herself told reporters, "[My family] is happy for me. To see me happy, to know that I am going to have a child, they are evidently pleased."

Beyond that, she said little about Rainier's reaction, though jaded Stephanie watchers speculated that her having a child by her ex-bodyguard might finally goad her tolerant father to rage. "All these things are driving the Boss [as Rainier is called by intimates] up the wall," said one close family friend.

Others, however, note that Caroline was pregnant with Andrea when she wed Casiraghi in 1983 and that Rainier has always been particularly indulgent toward Stephanie. "She's got a tremendously strong character," he once said admiringly. Although the constitution specifies that no member of the family can marry without his approval, the doting Prince is deemed unlikely to refuse Daniel his daughter's hand. "He's got to accept both the baby and the father," says an American friend.

Daniel's friend confides that Ducruet "hasn't had a father-son talk" with Rainier but adds, "He is not afraid of his future father-in-law."

While Stephanie acknowledges that her father would undoubtedly be "delighted" if she opted for a full-dress church wedding, she says that she and Daniel have other ideas. "We don't want a reception or any great ceremony," she says. "I believe that the day of our marriage we will be all by ourselves or with very few others. If necessary, we have decided to go off, just the two of us, with his mother and a pal, and get married... in perfect privacy." Rainier, she predicts, will have no objection. "I believe that he will leave it to me to choose," she says.

The wedding date, they say, is still open for discussion. "We don't want to rush things," says Daniel. "We already have this happy event coming, and we do not want to seem forced to get married. Because marriage is something beautiful and not made with an idea of obligation."

Becoming engaged undoubtedly didn't seem part of the script when the two met in 1988. When Daniel joined the palace security staff, Stephanie had just ended an affair with French-born nightclub owner Mario Oliver and was throwing her energies into her singing career. Despite the initial attraction, neither she nor Daniel made a move. "Each of us lived what had to be lived, but we remained very close to each other, in our hearts, at least," Daniel says.

"He never left my mind," adds Stephanie. "There was always a place for him... in my heart."

For the Princess, the ensuing years were restless ones: After a brief engagement to Le Fur, she recorded a second album (Stephanie) and put her name on a scent sold in Europe. When Casiraghi was killed, she seemed to lake on a new maturity—spending much of her time with the shattered Caroline and helping to care for her sister's young children.

For his part, Daniel was occupied at the time by his relationship with Malbouvier, who lives in Beausoleil. In May 1991, Malbouvier became pregnant, and four months ago she gave birth to their son, Michael.

While rumormongers claimed that Ducruet deserted the pregnant Marline after his romance with Stephanie began last spring, a close friend says he "was always there for her." Daniel himself maintains that he has been a devoted father. In fact he was present when Michael was born; he has been seen accompanying Martine and Michael to the pediatrician, and paparazzi have snapped him loading his son into the backseat of Stephanie's black BMW. As the French magazine Voici put it, "Stephanie [also] respects Daniel's fatherly involvement."

Says Daniel: "I am taking care of that child, and I am giving an allowance to his mother. He is my flesh and blood—I am not ashamed of him. Whether I wanted him or not is nobody's business. And I shall look after him as I look after the child Stephanie is giving to me."

"The things that have been said about Daniel are completely astonishing," says Stephanie. "[But] the birth of our baby is a wonderful event, and I don't want it to be sullied." At the suggestion that her child, too, may someday be the target of gossip, she retorts swiftly, "We will protect him—you will see the mother hen turn into a mother lion. Nobody will touch my child."

At the moment the mother-to-be plans to put aside long-term projects such as her singing and her work with Pool Position, the company for which she designed swimsuits. "Now my family life comes before everything," she says. Still, Italian director Ottavio Fabbri has asked the couple to star in a six-part historical TV series called Welcome to Monaco, to he shot after the birth of their baby, and they have consented—providing they won't be forced to travel. "I do not wish to be absent [from the baby]," says Stephanie. "If [the project] required me to take my distance from my family, I would not be in agreement at all."

Both athletic, Stephanie and Daniel, a paragliding enthusiast who introduced the Princess to the sport, say her pregnancy will be an active one. "I want to keep fit. I don't want to become a wreck," says Stephanie with a laugh. "I go swimming and do a bit of exercise at home, and every weekend we go off for long hikes in the mountains."

Before the baby is born, the couple plan to move with their three dogs into a two-story home that will be built near the palace, next door to Caroline's pink villa. For Stephanie, it will be the beginning of a new phase—one that, by her account, marks a new maturity. "I [am] ready to have this child," she says. "I have become much more responsible. I feel myself much more a woman."

Eager to discover the sex of their baby, the two say they are hoping for a son, whom they would call Jonathan. "We are convinced that it will be a boy," says Stephanie. Adds Daniel: "For a daddy, it's good to have a boy, because that is the continuity of his life."

According to Stephanie, this will only be the beginning for the famille Ducruet. "We want to have three or four children," she says. "At the very least, three." And how will they be raised? "One must be very open-minded, very understanding," she says. Daniel agrees. "We will offer the widest range of possibilities to our [children]," he says, "and then it will be up to them to make [their] choice."

For better or worse, it seems that the restless Stephanie has found a new raison d'être. Never mind that there are cynics who claim that this pregnancy was an impulsive move, one that will sustain her interest no longer than, say, a new suitor. The Princess is convinced that she has finally found her place. "My role will be, above all, to make [this child] happy in what he does," says the woman who has spent so much of her life struggling to define herself. "Our children," she vows, "will not be unhappy."




MICHELLE GREEN
JOEL STRATTE-McCLURE in Monaco

Contributors:
Joel Stratte-McClure


From PEOPLE Magazine
June 15, 1992

Vol. 37No. 23
By Michelle Green

PHOTOS FROM SINGAPORE

Daniel Ducruet watching. Stéphanie looks on.


















Uncle Albert supports his niece in Singapore














Stéphanie worried. Daniel looks on.

















Pauline fresh from the pool










In MAD FOR MONACO 28-08-2010

PREMIÈRES IMPRESSIONS DE PAULINE DUCRUET À SINGAPORE

PAULINE DUCRUET IN SINGAPORE

ROYAL WEDDING IN GREECE

AS FÉRIAS DO PRESIDENTE

Presidência: Cavaco Silva no Algarve abre portas ao CM

“Os portugueses estão enganados quanto às férias do Presidente”

O escritório do Presidente tem passagem para a piscina, onde um grupo de crianças, entre as quais alguns dos seus netos, se divertia.

Muito bronzeado, de pólo e calções, o Presidente recebe-nos no seu pequeno escritório na Casa da Gaivota, na aldeia da Coelha, em Albufeira, sua residência de férias vai para 13 anos, localizada numa pequena rua sem saída para o trânsito. A mulher, Maria Cavaco Silva, aparece também para um cumprimento rápido, com uma braçada de roupa lavada. "Trabalho de férias!", explica, no tom de lamento de quem tem de fazer a lida de casa. E é para falar de férias, das suas férias, que o Presidente nos recebe.

Sentado numa secretária simples, cheia de papéis, que nos diz serem os diplomas que tem de analisar, Cavaco Silva vai directo ao assunto: "As férias de um Presidente da República são muito limitadas, porque é um órgão unipessoal, não tem substituto, e existem muitos assuntos que não podem esperar. Por isso, todos os dias de manhã, dedico-me ao exercício das minhas funções de Presidente da República aqui neste pequeno escritório." Um espaço situado na parte de trás da casa e aberto para um jardim com piscina, onde um grupo de crianças, entre as quais alguns dos netos do Presidente, se diverte. Nas paredes há retratos do Chefe de Estado, imagens da sua actividade política, com mais de 30 anos, e, até, a reprodução de um cartoon de António sobre as últimas presidenciais (que Cavaco ganhou logo à primeira volta, com mais de 50 por cento dos votos).

Entre as matérias inadiáveis mesmo em tempo de férias estão os diplomas do Governo e da Assembleia da República – a propósito, o Presidente recorda que tem apenas 8 dias para decidir se consulta ou não o Tribunal Constitucional e 20 dias para decidir sobre a promulgação ou o veto. "Este ano tive 37 diplomas para ler e para analisar. Ainda estão aqui alguns, que chegaram há pouco tempo", diz, apontando para os dossiês. À lembrança vem o "jipe cheio de diplomas" das férias do ano passado, mas o Presidente frisa que agora são bastante menos.

A análise e o estudo dos diplomas é "uma matéria que absorve muito, muito tempo", mas está longe de ser exclusiva. "Os portugueses estão muito enganados quanto às férias do Presidente", comenta, explicando que, além do controlo da actividade legislativa do Governo e da Assembleia da República, há toda uma série de assuntos que exige a sua atenção durante as férias, como: a nomeação de embaixadores para o estrangeiro e a acreditação de embaixadores em Portugal; as respostas a cartas de chefes de Estado e as mensagens que há que lhes enviar, de felicitação ou pesar, conforme os acontecimentos nos respectivos países; a análise dos convites que lhe são dirigidos – "O Presidente da República recebe, em média, quatro convites por dia para cerimónias oficiais" –; a assinatura dos decretos de promoção a oficial general e, é claro, o acompanhamento da situação nacional e da actualidade internacional.

"Quase todos os dias há um automóvel que vem de Lisboa com documentação que tenho de despachar ou dossiês que tenho de analisar, e há matérias cuja delicadeza exige a presença do Chefe da Casa Civil", refere o Chefe de Estado, adiantando que antes de nos receber tinha estado precisamente reunido com Nunes Liberato.

Em resumo, "as férias do Presidente nunca são férias completas; não há possibilidade, porque não há um substituto, tem de ser ele próprio a analisar e a decidir". No final, "resta algum tempo para ir de vez em quando para a praia, dar um mergulho e nadar um pouco", e para ler.

No dia em que nos recebe, a ida à praia é trocada por uma visita à quinta herdada do pai e ainda um passeio pelas arribas à frente da casa e uma caminhada no passadiço da lagoa dos Salgados, para observar os flamingos. De binóculos.

"APRECIO ALEGRE COMO POETA"

Em tempo de férias, a pergunta impõe-se: que livro ou livros está a ler? Cavaco Silva aponta para uma pequena pilha de livros sobre uma mesa e enumera alguns exemplos: a ‘A Casa-comboio’, de Raquel Ochoa (a quem o Presidente entregou o Prémio Literário Revelação Agustina Bessa-Luís), ‘Portugal, o Sabor da Terra’, de José Mattoso, um livro de Luís Rosa sobre a guerra na Guiné e... livros do Manuel Alegre? O Presidente sorri perante a ‘provocação’ e responde, surpreendendo-nos: "Sabe, tenho praticamente todos os livros do Manuel Alegre, e com dedicatórias. A minha mulher, desde sempre, guardou os livros dele e eu, quando o encontrava, pedia-lhe que os autografasse." É, remata, "uma pessoa que aprecio como poeta".

"OS GOVERNOS NÃO PRECISAM DE TER A CONFIANÇA POLÍTICA DO PRESIDENTE"

O tema da conversa com Cavaco Silva são as férias, mas o Presidente não se furta a responder a algumas perguntas sobre questões que marcam a actualidade política nacional, como a polémica à volta do projecto de revisão constitucional do PSD.

O Chefe de Estado começa por assumir o seu papel de guardião da Constituição, desta Constituição: "Estou a exercer as minhas funções à luz da Constituição que está em vigor e que eu jurei cumprir. E, para mim, a palavra ‘jurar’ tem muito significado e, por isso, confirmo o texto da Constituição que jurei cumprir e fazer cumprir. Não quer isto dizer que concordo ou não com todo o conteúdo da Constituição. Não é isso que está em causa. Agora eu sou Presidente no contexto desta Constituição, não de outras."

Interrogado sobre os que o criticaram por promulgar diplomas com os quais não concorda plenamente, como o das uniões de facto, Cavaco Silva riposta: "Esse diploma sofreu alterações na Assembleia que foram, em geral, ao encontro das observações que fiz. Mas, como todos os Presidentes da República disseram e escreveram, com alguma frequência os presidentes não concordam com a totalidade das normas jurídicas de um diploma, isso é o mais normal".

Sobre os poderes presidenciais e as relações com o Governo, não se coíbe de sublinhar as limitações impostas pela Constituição: "Basta ter presente o nosso sistema constitucional. Mudou o Presidente e nem por isso mudou o Governo; isto é, os presidentes que chegam de novo recebem um Governo que foi nomeado por um outro Presidente." Os governos, frisa, a propósito, "não precisam de ter a confiança política dos Presidentes, nem respondem politicamente perante o Presidente da República. Nos termos constitucionais, respondem politicamente perante a Assembleia da República." E conclui com um recado: "Foi por isso que, há dias, disse que os nossos comentadores estivais deviam ler o livro vermelho de Vital Moreira e Gomes Canotilho, porque analisa bem, quanto a mim, como devem ser exercidos os po-deres presidenciais".

PROMULGAÇÕES EM DIAS DE DESCANSO

O Presidente da República recebeu este ano 37 diplomas para analisar e, durante as férias no Algarve, promulgou alguns de grande importância, como o das uniões de facto, o pacote anticorrupção, o Estatuto do Aluno, as alterações ao Código de Execução de Penas e, anteontem, o diploma sobre os chips, ou seja, sobre o pagamento das auto-estradas sem custos para o utilizador (Scuts).

"A GUINÉ-BISSAU É PREOCUPANTE"

Um dos assuntos que mais preocupam o Presidente, mesmo em férias, diz respeito à situação que se passa na Guiné-Bissau, onde se coloca "a interrogação sobre a subordinação do poder militar ao poder civil". "Não podemos esquecer que houve o assassinato de um Presidente e do chefe de Estado-Maior General das Forças Armadas, que foi nomeado depois um outro, que, neste momento, está preso [Induta]."

CORREIO DA MANHÃ 28-08-2010

Por José Rodrigues

DON TAM DICE MESSA PER MUSSOLINI

ELEZIONI 2004. RITORNI & DEBUTTI. Sospeso a divinis e scomunicato, è stato espulso anche dalla confraternita di Lefebvre: «Ma il vero disobbediente è il Papa»

Don Tam: «La mia tonaca? Una camicia nera taglia XXL»

Dice messa per Mussolini e corre alle Europee con la nipote Alessandra. «Rosario e manganello» il suo motto anti-Islam

«E adesso per gli islamici / adesso arriva il bello / Rosario e manganello! / Rosario e manganello!». Se la gode, Giulio Maria Tam, il «prete» che dice messa per Benito Mussolini e si candida alle Europee con sua nipote Alessandra, a veder l' effetto che fa canticchiando sull' aria di Papaveri e papere la sua canzonetta catto-fascista: «E' bella o no?». Ride. Fa l' occhiolino. Appioppa una pacca sulle spalle da stendere un bue. E riparte sull' aria di Aveva un bavero con un' altra strofetta delle sue: «Lui col turbante color zafferano / lei col chador color ciclamino / fin dalla Mecca a Lodi e a Milano / per conquistare la nostra società!». Zia Angela Maria, a vederlo, sarebbe proprio orgogliosa. Terziaria domenicana, aveva dedicato la vita a Dio e al Duce, faceva l' ausiliaria nella Repubblica di Salò e venne fucilata alla fine della guerra («senza processo») dai partigiani. Così come vennero fucilati parte dei suoi «eroi». Preti neri come don Gino Artini, don Angelo Baroni, fra Galdino, don Alberico Manetti, don Antonio Bruzzesi, fra Ginepro da Pompeiana. O don Ettore Civati, centurione della Milizia, volontario in Albania, podestà in Valtellina e fascista così fascista da finire spretato e diventare funzionario del Minculpop. O su tutti don Tullio Calcagno, il prete scismatico che teorizzò una sua idea di cattolicesimo fascista, diede vita alla rivista Crociata italica, finì sospeso a divinis e scomunicato ed arrivò a un punto tale di rottura con la Chiesa che, davanti al plotone di esecuzione, rifiutò perfino il conforto di un sacerdote. Anche lui, «don» Giulio Maria Tam, in realtà non è «don». Non lo è mai stato. Figlio di un impiegato comunale democristiano, mamma democristiana, un fratello più o meno leghista, un altro deputato alla Regione Lombardia per i Democratici di Sinistra tra i quali è finito con i cristiano-sociali di Pierre Carniti, altri due vagamente di centrodestra, è diventato fascista quando aveva quindici anni ed era già avviato a diventare un colosso di quasi due metri con le spalle a due ante e le mani enormi. Attivista di Alleanza Cattolica, vedeva la Chiesa conciliare come una banda di mollaccioni senza spina dorsale. Va da sé che, quando lo Spirito Santo lo chiamò, lui avvertì la chiamata come un mussoliniano monito: «a noi!». E si andò a rinchiudere nel seminario di Ecône fondato dal vescovo Marcel Lefebvre. Presi i voti (scismatici) nel 1980, ha girato mezzo mondo come missionario dei cattolici ultra-tradizionalisti nemici del Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano II: due anni in Italia, due in Svizzera, due in Messico, due in Spagna, due in Francia... Sempre più duro, sempre più nero. Al punto che quando nel 2000 avvenne il tentativo di un riavvicinamento tra gli eredi del monsignore ultra-tradizionalista e la Chiesa, lui si oppose con tale cocciutaggine da essere buttato fuori dalla Fraternità: era troppo estremista anche per loro. E adesso? «Ho un piccolo priorato a casa mia». Nonostante la sospensione a divinis e la scomunica? «Sono un disobbediente, ma la mia messa è valida. Il problema disciplinare non tocca il valore del sacerdozio. Disobbediente, poi... Disobbediente a chi?». Per lui è il Papa, il vero disobbediente: «Disobbedisce a tutti i papi che l' hanno preceduto. Tranne Giovanni XXIII, Paolo VI e Giovanni Paolo I, s' intende. Quei modernisti. Liberté, egalité, fraternité: ecco dov' è la radice del male». Nella Rivoluzione Francese? «Ovvio: nella Rivoluzione Francese! Il problema è il relativismo etico. Dal divorzio passi all' aborto, dall' aborto all' eutanasia, dall' eutanasia all' omicidio...». Non starà esagerando? «Per niente: col relativismo sai dove cominci ma non dove finisci. Se tutto è relativo anche l' omicidio può starci». E non andategli a dire che questo Papa tutto pare meno che modernista: «Chi? Karol Wojtyla? Scherziamo? Qualche pseudo-restaurazione c' è stata. Ma solo per gettare polvere negli occhi. Basta guardare Ratzinger». Non dirà che è un progressista! «Si è travestito da tradizionalista per fare meglio la sua parte. Lui è la quinta colonna dei modernisti! La quinta colonna!». I camerati, figurarsi, per lui stravedono. Tanto più da quando ha cominciato a dire in giro, più o meno scherzosamente, che per lui la tonaca «è una camicia nera XXL lunga fino al calcagno». Generoso, si dà a tutti. Celebra messe solenni per l' anima del Capoccione a Predappio. Benedice i fez e i gagliardetti. Si fa fotografare mentre sventola il tricolore nella versione di Salò o addirittura mentre leva il braccio nel saluto romano. Come facevano i preti fascisti che in piazza Venezia, sotto gli occhi del Duce, furono immortalati in una celebre copertina della Domenica del Corriere. Mai un dubbio? Mai. E rinfaccia al Papa di avere chiesto «troppe volte scusa» e lo accusa di avere «baciato il Corano» e non gli perdona di aver sospirato sulla violenza delle Crociate e rifiuta l' ecumenismo e rimpiange la chiesa guerriera che teneva in una mano il Vangelo e nell' altra la spada. E se denuncia l' America per avere aggredito l' Iraq «accendendo un incendio in tutto il Medio Oriente», tuona però che «l' Islam è il nemico, l' Islam è l' invasore, l' Islam è il pericolo per tutta la società occidentale ma a un certo punto viva l' Islam, perché man mano che penetra dentro le nostre città e i nostri Paesi ci costringerà a riscoprire la vera fede. E a difenderla con tutti i mezzi». Ridacchia: «Ma se li immagina i comunisti? Cacciati dalla invasione maomettana saranno costretti a chiedere asilo agli Stati Uniti!». Ma basta adesso, è arrivata la grigliata mista. Maiale, pollo, galletto, manzo, salsiccia mista: «Visto che il Signore ci ha dato tutte queste creature, godiamocele!».E affonda la forchetta con l' appetito di chi sa di avere molto da riempire. Le canzoni, per ora, almeno fino al caffè e alla grappa, possono aspettare: «Col pugnale e con la bomba / nella vita del terrore / quando l' obice rimbomba / non mi trema in petto il cuore!». Gian Antonio Stella

Stella Gian Antonio

CORRIERE DELLA SERA 8-06-2004

Sunday, 5 April 2009BNP deputy leader addresses international fascist rally

Simon Darby-Deputy Leader of BNP greeted by fascist salutes in Milan

The deputy leader of the British National Party has spoken at an international fascist rally alongside a man convicted of a terrorism offence and a convicted Holocaust denier.

Simon Darby claims he addressed a 400-strong audience in Milan today (5 April). Representatives of extreme-right parties in Germany, France, Romania, Hungary and Cyprus were expected to take part in the meeting.

Darby, who flew out to Italy this morning, heads the BNP’s European election candidates’ list for the West Midlands, a region in which the party could win a seat. He has a “Mr Clean” reputation in a party in which many leading activists have criminal convictions, a nazi past or both.

The rally was titled: “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Big Powers”, a change from the original, “Our Europe; Peoples and Traditions Against Banks and Usury”. The term “usury” is traditionally used by Nazis against Jews and it may have been altered to avoid accusations of antisemitism.

It had been booked at a major conference centre in Milan, but widespread protests from MEPs and Italian partisan veterans, as well as a 20,000-strong petition forced its move to a private hotel.

The meeting was organised by Forza Nuova, whose leader Roberto Fiore, was convicted in Italy in 1985 for “subversive association” for his involvement in the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei. Two members of that organisation were convicted for the Bologna railway station bombing in August 1980 which killed 85 people, including two British tourists, Catherine Mitchell and John Kolpinski, and left over 200 wounded. It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack in Europe.


Roberto Fiore

Fiore became an MEP after Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian fascist dictator, resigned her seat to take up a post in the Italian government. He has been a friend, financial supporter and political mentor to BNP leader Nick Griffin since 1980, when Fiore arrived in Britain on the run from justice in Italy.

Fiore helped Griffin run the National Front “political soldiers”, described at the time as a “proto-terrorist organisation”. When the political soldiers collapsed, they went on to found a new fascist group, the International Third Position.

Alongside his political activities Fiore amassed a huge fortune through business interests in London and later around the world. They included operating as a slum landlord and exploiting people brought in from eastern Europe, Italy and Spain, whom he passed on to gang masters to work on the land and in food processing plants.

Fiore was also one of the founders of the extremely violent Hammerskins skinhead movement, part of the nazi music and football hooligan gangs responsible for violence on the terraces. They have strong links with one of the most vicious fascist football hooligan gangs in Europe, the Roma Ultras, who recently attacked English football fans, stabbing one. Their most infamous episode was when they unfurled a banner down one side of their home stadium with the words “Jews to Auschwitz”.

Hammerskins members recently marched through Bergamo in northern Italy armed with sticks and metal bars and with helmets on their heads. At their head were Fiore and Father Giulio Tam, a priest revered by Spanish falangistas and Italian fascists, who blessed the FN’s new headquarters in the town. Father Tam was in the audience at the Milan rally.


Don Giulio Tam The Fascist saluting priest

Fiore is closely associated with the Catholic Society of St Pius X, in which Bishop Richard Williamson was a leading light. In January 2009 in a television interview Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, a statement that caused a scandal when the Pope lifted his longstanding excommunication a week later.

Also in prime position on the platform with Darby was Bruno Gollnisch. An MEP for the French National Front, Gollnisch was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in January 2007 for denying the Holocaust. He was also fined €5,000.

The court, in Lyon, found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004. Gollnisch, who was chair of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty far-right official group in the European Parliament, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

In April last year, just three days before polling day in the London Assembly election, in which the BNP won one seat, Griffin brought Gollnisch and other European extremists to a private meeting in a South Kensington hotel.

The meeting took place at a time when Griffin, a long-time Jew-hater who has a conviction for race hate, had approached the Jewish community in a bid to form a united front against Muslims, an invitation that the Jewish community firmly rejected.

Euro Fascists Together

Despite the BNP’s anti-EU stance, Griffin is keen to build links with European far-right parties, hoping that if he is elected as an MEP, he will be able to join a far-right bloc. If enough far-right MEPs can put aside their nationalist rivalries and form an official group in the European Parliament, they will benefit from a further €1 million a year on top of their salaries and staffing and expenses allowances. They would also be entitled to committee positions and enhanced speaking rights.

In October Griffin addressed an open-air rally of the Hungarian hardline fascist Jobbik party and its private army heavy mob, the Hungarian Guard, in Budapest. Griffin has been flirting with the Hungarian fascists since May when he met the Jobbik representatives Bela Kovacs and Zoltan Fuzessy in London.

Jobbik, also known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, is strongly anti-Jewish. Although the BNP has courted the Jewish community and denies it is antisemitic, Darby said recently on a radio broadcast that BNP MEPs would welcome cooperation with Jobbik.

A few days after his return from Hungary Griffin was cementing his relationship with the tiny anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-Romani Czech National Party (NS) by addressing its rally to celebrate Czech independence. Griffin’s trip, accompanied by several BNP activists, followed the visit by the NS leader, Petra Edelmannová, to the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival last August.

That Darby has now joined Griffin in linking up with these far-right extremists in Europe shows that the BNP is still an out-and-out fascist and antisemitic party, despite the fine words and smart suits of its leaders.

KIRKLESS UNITY 5-04-2009