Free socialist and libertine: the definition should not displease a Gianni De Michelis, pluriminister of the First Republic, a man of many faces, died today, Saturday 11 May, at the age of 78. High-ranking politician and proud anti-communist for his admirers; reveler and "ballroom surplus" for his detractors, De Michelis was minister of state holdings, labor and foreign affairs when, in the final years of his political career, the Berlin wall fell. And there is no doubt that he was a complex character, difficult to label only for his defects (many) or only for his qualities, also not few: a man of great international relations and great culture, a quality politician overwhelmed by tangentopoli. The many facets of the man and the politician De Michelis are well present in the deluge of comments that rain down on him.
So remember it the President of the Republic Mattarella: «With the death of Gianni De Michelis, one of the protagonists of government activity in the latter part of the twentieth century disappears. Intelligent and passionate exponent of the socialist cause, with his action he marked a significant season in the foreign policy of our country, in the phase that followed the disappearance of the east / west contrast. His intuitions and his commitment on the European affair, the Balkans, the Middle East and the Mediterranean have consolidated Italy's international role and contributed to the cause of peace and international cooperation ».
Even today's trade unionists trace a memory of it:
Gianni De Michelis was born in Venice on November 26, 1940, had a degree in industrial chemistry and was a university professor. He entered politics in 1964 with his election as city councilor in Venice and immediately became city planning commissioner. In 1969 he entered the socialist leadership and then became national head of party organization. In 1976 he supported the election of Bettino Craxi to the secretariat with whom he then became a member of the national leadership of the party, president of the group in the Chamber between 1987 and 1988 and deputy secretary in 1993 and 1994. In 2001, after the dissolution of the Socialist Party , founded the New Psi with Bobo Craxi, which then merged into Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms.
“Longtemps, je ne me suis pas couché de bonne heure…”, for a long time I did not go to bed early…. With this sentence and a good dose of self-irony, De Michelis admitted one of the defects he was accused of: the passion for beautiful women, parties and disco nights. But as someone observes on Twitter “the Hon has also left. Gianni De Michelis, who under the pleasure-seeking mask also hid the torments of every complex man”.
