Remigration Summit, Alessandro Gassman's anger after the far-right rally: "Remove my father's name from the theater"

“I ask you to remove my father’s name from the theatre ”. This is the message sent to the mayor of Gallarate (Varese) by Alessandro Gassman , actor and son of the great director Vittorio Gassman, after the Lombard town hosted the Remigration Summit on Saturday, inside the theatre named after his father Vittorio, a gathering of European far-right parties on the theme of so-called “remigration”.

An affront to Alessandro Gassman, who in his message to the Northern League mayor of Gallarate, Andrea Cassani , recalls how his father “had relatives deported and killed by the Nazi-fascists” and that the theater dedicated to him instead hosted “the international meeting of European far-right parties (neo-fascists and Nazis)”. Therefore, “if your intention is to continue to host, in a place of culture, demonstrations with racist and illiberal slogans , I ask you to remove my father’s name from the aforementioned theater”, concludes Gassman’s open letter to the mayor of Gallarate, who is also the provincial secretary of the Northern League.

Alessandro Gassman's message comes in the wake of a days-long controversy over the presence in the city of party representatives and supporters of the European far right who are rooted in the battle for "remigration", or the forced expulsion of foreigners who are, even legally, in a country if their presence is deemed problematic.

We are talking about a “program” that, if applied, would violate numerous national and European laws : in some countries such as France, Austria, Germany and Holland it is openly discussed among far-right movements, while in Italy the word has only recently become more common among some parliamentarians of the League or in government-affiliated newspapers.

The summit opened with security problems: on Thursday, Rasmus Paludan , a far-right Danish politician known for having organised several anti-Islamic demonstrations by burning copies of the Koran, was stopped and expelled at Milan's Malpensa airport, on his way to the Gallarate rally.

Roberto Vannacci , a member of the European Parliament and the new deputy secretary of the League, was supposed to participate in the event, but he declined due to other commitments, but sent a video message to the summit in which he defended remigration, speaking of it as a “battle for freedom and civilization, for security”.

Remigration Summit? In 90 seconds Andrea Cassani, mayor of Gallarate and provincial secretary of Lega Varese, dismantles the accusations of the left that wants to muzzle the ideas of those who think differently from them. pic.twitter.com/mk1y7hdPua

— League – Salvini Premier (@LegaSalvini) May 17, 2025

Opposition parties and several left-wing associations had spoken out against the Remigration Summit, and on Saturday they took to the streets in several demonstrations in Milan , one of which ended with clashes between the police and violent fringes.

The far-right leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, defended the Gallarate summit: “I don’t understand why someone’s free thought should be banned a priori. We’re not in the Soviet Union”. The same line was taken by the head of the Viminale, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi , who is notoriously close to Salvini: “As Interior Minister, I have the obligation to guarantee the free expression of thought by everyone”, Piantedosi said, adding that “in a democracy, all contributions and all components are needed with respect to such complex phenomena”.

Mayor Cassani in turn responded to Gassman by bringing up his father Vittorio, "an eclectic man of culture who was never afraid to express his political affiliation and who, like all people of value who have made the history of our country, probably would not have fought the ideas of others with a priori censorship but with the strength of more convincing ideas".