Italy’s Interior Minister has caused an uproar after proposing a census of Roma people living in the country.
He told a local television channel that "unfortunately you have no choice but to keep those with Italian citizenship, you can still expel those who are here illegally”.
Mr Salvini, who has long accused the Roma minority of being characterised by high rates of criminality, made the remarks to local television channel TeleLombardia on Monday.
It came as Italy marks 80 years since racial laws against the Jews were introduced in 1938 in response to a census of religious minorities and the publication of the racist magazine La Difesa della Razza (“The Defence of the Race”).
The Union of Italian Jewish Communities said the interior minister’s remarks were shocking.
“Matteo Salvini’s announcement of a possible census that targets the Roma population in Italy alone is worrying and reminiscent of laws and racist measures from just 80 years that are unfortunately increasingly forgotten,” the organisation said in a statement.
“(Nothing) can justify forcing specific groups to undergo security measures that are only reserved to them.”
Mr Salvini, who leads the populist League party, assumed his role this month after his party struck a deal with the Five Star Movement to end an institutional crisis which lasted since Italians elected a hung parliament in March.
Since becoming interior minister he has ordered the closure of Italian ports to boats carrying refugees from the shores of North Africa, causing consternation among the country’s progressives and triggering a diplomatic row with France.
Luigi Di Maio, the leader of the 5 Star Movement and Mr Salvini’s partner in government, criticised his statement on Roma people, calling it “incompatible with the constitution”.
Mr Salvini subsequently said released a statement in which he attempted to clarify his remarks: “The objective is to make a survey of the camps where the Roma live; we do not intend to compile lists or taking these people’s fingerprints. We want to protect the thousands of (Roma) kids who do not get a chance to go to school regularly because they are educated and introduced to criminality instead.”
Italy’s Roma population stands between 120,000 and 180,000, with the majority holding Italian citizenship.
But the community suffers from high rates of illiteracy, making its members more vulnerable to involvement in unlawful activities.
Around 28,000 live in camps, some of which are legal but others are makeshift settlements, and Mr Salvini called during the election for these to be removed.
He made the image of a bulldozer a symbol of his campaign and wore it on his jerseys on multiple occasions. A poll quoted this week by prominent journalist Enrico Mentana suggested Mr Salvini’s party had surpassed Five Star in popularity for the first time.
It is not the first time an Italian Interior Minister has advocated a crackdown on the country’s Roma community.
In 2008 Roberto Maroni called for fingerprints to be collected from camp inhabitants, briefly triggering a European Union investigation.
