Silvia Sardone, who is the League's pasionaria that Salvini wants as his deputy. Raised in the former Stalingrad of Italy, she fights against the Islamic veil

Milan, May 15, 2025 – For someone who grew up, humanly and politically, in that Sesto San Giovanni of the times when the title of “Stalingrad of Italy” still had a meaning, Silvia Sardone, 42, has shown uncommon courage, managing to make her way exactly against the current in which the politics of the city was going. Indeed, to tell the truth, she managed, together with her then partner Roberto Di Stefano, to give that same city the most unexpected turn: to the right, for the first time since the post-war period (also thanks to the fatal blow inflicted by the investigation into the Sesto System).

From her militant role in Forza Italia on the streets of Sesto to today, when she is about to become deputy secretary of Matteo Salvini's League with Roberto Vannacci, Sardone has come a long way and made a great career. The saying "you either love her or hate her" is undoubtedly true of her, tertium non datur. On the left, she is worse than smoke in the eyes, on the right, the numbers speak for themselves: in 2024, she was re-elected to the European Parliament with 70 thousand preferences, the most voted in Italy after Vannacci in the League , the first woman ever.

Her strength, for those who identify with this type of issue, is not giving up a step on the issue of immigration. Especially if Islamic. Wherever there is an anti-Islamic protest, there she is. Who knows if she considers the threats received via social media, in July 2023 together with Matteo Salvini, from the trapper Baby Gang and other boys of foreign origin, for her positions on the Islamic veil and immigration, a medal of honor. And again: on September 13, 2023, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, she showed up with the "No to the Islamic veil" t-shirt, once again receiving insults and death threats, which earned her an escort. For some time, in TV programs where there were discussions on these issues, she was always the counterpart of the guests of foreign origin. With tones and attitude that made her nicknamed "the pasionaria of the League". But there are also those who coined the term "sardonization" , used in negative terms on the subject of security in Milan.

But it's not just the battle against "the Islamization of Italy and Europe" (a topic on which she also wrote a book, "Mai sottomessi"). Silvia Sardone opposes "the obligation of electric cars from 2035" while fighting for "the defense of Made in Italy and the Mediterranean diet, rather than making us eat crickets and locusts". She must have always had a pugnacious spirit: a law graduate from Bocconi, she is a labor lawyer by profession. Since June 2014 she has been employed at Milano Serravalle (before that there was the turbulent arrival at Afol , the employment agency of the then Province) but her political career, which took her from district councilor of zone 2 in Milan to twice MEP in the space of twenty years , has imposed an unpaid leave of absence for public office.

Her political career, then. Silvia Sardone was “born” a Berlusconi supporter . In 2006, at the age of 24, she was elected with Forza Italia to the council of zone 2 of Milan, where she remained until 2016, when she was elected to the city council. In Forza Italia she met Roberto Di Stefano (with whom she later had two children) who, together with her, in 2017, succeeded in the feat of wresting Sesto San Giovanni from the center-left (doing the double in 2022). In 2016, Sardone was elected city councilor of Milan with Forza Italia, obtaining 2,319 votes. In 2018, she was elected to the regional council of Lombardy with 11,312 preferences, resulting in the second highest number of votes in Lombardy and the first most voted woman. But Forza Italia is too small for her (or is she unable to make the big leap with Forza Italia? Who knows), in the summer of 2018 she leaves Berlusconi and bets on the party that best represents her – despite her Apulian origins –: the League. A bet that paid off: in the European elections the following year she is a candidate with the League in the north-west constituency, being elected with almost 45,000 votes. From a Forza Italia member to a League member also in matters of the heart: in 2023 she married a staunch League member like Davide Caparini.