Fact Check: Old video of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s comment on Islam shared as recent

Hyderabad: A video clip of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni saying there is no place for Islam in Europe because it is not compatible with European culture is going viral on social media. Several media outlets have reported the video on December 18.

The Times of India shared the video on X with the caption, “Watch: Italy PM Giorgia Meloni says ‘no place for Islam in Europe, there compatibility problem.’”

Media outlets such as NDTV World, The Tribune, News 18, Hindustan Times, Business Today, Swarajya, Live Mint, Outlook and Firstpost published a report on the video on December 18.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the reporting is misleading. The video is from her election campaign in 2018.

We ran a relevant keyword search and came across a report by the Financial Times from December 17 on a far-right political festival in Rome, also attended by Elon Musk and UP Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. We did not find any mention of Islam, Sharia or incompatibility of Islam in Europe.

It said that Meloni accepted her government’s failure to curb irregular migration. It also mentioned that she spoke on Italy’s demographic problem about the continuing fall in new births.

Upon a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found a video report published on February 9, 2018, by the verified YouTube channel of Ala News — an Italian digital media company. The viral clip comes around two minutes into the video.

The English translation of the video’s Italian title reads, “Meloni: Salvini is right, Islam is incompatible with our culture.”

We also found the video published by Italian media outlet II Fatto Quotidiano in a report published in 2018.

It is evident that the viral video is from 2018 and it was reported by several media outlets on December 18, 2023. Hence, we conclude that quoting Giorgia Meloni without mentioning the year is misleading.