France: Italian political refugees (1)
01 January 1991
France: Italian political refugees
artdoc August=1993
There are around 200 Italian political refugees in Paris over ten
years after they fled from Italy to escape trial and
imprisonment. They remain in France without rights and placed in
limbo by protracted legal battles over their extradition.
These people form the remnants of an almost forgotten period
of Italian political struggle in the 1970s. The new social
movements which grew up in the 1960s led, in the 1970s, to many
forms of extra-parliamentary action. Semi-legal forms of activity
were termed auto-riduzione, involving for example mass reduced
payments of bus fares and rents. At the other end of the spectrum
more than two hundred clandestine armed groups operated in Italy
during the 1970s.
Between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s over 20,000 `political
offenders' were arrested and put on trial. In 1983 some 4,000
were in prison and 200 are still serving sentences. Many fled the
country when bailed, others perceiving their imminent arrest also
fled. More than 400 gathered in Paris a traditional home for
political refugees where, ironically, many Italian communists and
socialists had found a home when escaping the fascist regime in
the 1930s.
Both the Italian and French constitutions exclude extradition
for people charged with political offences. The Italian
constitution says that `repressive cooperation' cannot take place
between countries not sharing the same notion of political
illegitimacy. On the other hand it stresses that offences
committed with the purpose of undermining the principles of
liberty and democracy are not regarded as political. While
Article 26 of the Italian constitution states that extradition
has a political nature when `related to a non-political offence,
[it] is aimed at the political prosecution of the individual'.
The international principle that when extradition is not legally
possible the individual concerned is guaranteed political asylum
is also recognised in the Italian constitution.
The Italian authorities' proceedings for extradition met with
some difficulties. The claim that the people were undermining
liberty and democracy was hard to justify as this was aimed at
stopping any resurgence of fascism - many of the refugees in
Paris had a record of violent anti-fascist activity. It was
equally difficult to argue that the offences were non-political.
The Italian Penal Code (article 13) also recognises that the
offence must be recognised as such by both countries, so charges
such as `subversive association' or `armed organisation' have no
judicial meaning in French law. But in rejecting the Italian
requests for extradition the French authorities were obliged to
grant political asylum. However alongside the legal process there
emerged an `understanding' between the Association of Italian
Refugees and the Ministry of Justice. They would not be
extradited provided they `kept a low profile' but, so as not to
embarrass French-Italian relations, neither would they be granted
political asylum.
The effect on the Italian refugees varied. Some going to the
French-Italian border to see friends and relatives were arrested
by the French police and handed over; some were given one-way
tickets to African countries where there was no extradition
treaties; ten were taken over the border to Spain which duly
extradited them; and thirty returned to Italy spontaneously to
serve their sentences.
Those that remained are street-sellers, builders and
decorators, and teachers but with little security of employment
because of their status. Some have distanced themselves from
their past. Through the `export' of the concepts of
`dissociation' and `repentance' from the Italian terrorist laws
a number of the refugees have become `respectable' and hold
secure jobs, the majority in academic institutions, in France.
`Dissociation' meant publicly renouncing previous acts and the
politics of their<