Italian leader Meloni deployed 500 military troops to Milan in response to recent riots, Nigel Farage said in an interview with Fox News Digital. Farage, the Reform UK leader, said Meloni's reaction was swifter and a better sign of leadership.
Farage was speaking as violent riots gripped parts of Europe, particularly France. He said education protests there had spiraled into riots, destruction and theft, and he described mass looting and violence in Paris as genuinely horrendous. He argued that President Emmanuel Macron should have mobilized the military, saying Macron was asleep at the wheel and that the problem was not only that he was at a concert. He added that France has effective police forces, but that the scale of the uprising was severe.
Farage pointed to years of mass migration and failed political leadership as factors in the unrest. "People like me who were warning about this years ago have sadly been proven right, but the problems are gonna be here for a very, very long time," he said. He also said leaders who treat any criticism of immigration, legal or illegal, as racist find it hard to face their own policy failures.