‘The Daily’: Nationalism in Italy

Today, “The Daily” is in Italy for a five-part series on the rise of nationalism and populism in Europe. We’re giving you a first look at the episode.

Italy is on the front lines of the continental wave of populism, and it’s where Katrin Bennhold, our Berlin bureau chief, met with Susanna Ceccardi, a rising far-right star and mayor in Cascina, to understand what is driving the movement.

Ms. Ceccardi said the migration issue helped her get elected in 2016, when she became Tuscany’s first far-right mayor in 70 years. Youth unemployment is at 30 percent in the country, and she cited a frustration among Italian parents who watched their children leave to find work as foreign-born populations moved in.

Ms. Bennhold followed young supporters of the party, asking one at a campaign event, “Are you proud to be European?”

“Yes,” he responded. “But not in the European Union.”

While many embraced anti-immigrant messaging, Ms. Bennhold explained that there was also something else going on. “Here were young people who never in their political life had felt in control of things,” she said. “They’d come of age in a time of austerity. That’s all they’d known — that they were now excited by a political option that promised to change everything and that promised to retake control.”

More: Watch for the full episode on Italy later today, and listen now to the first episode of the five-part series, “The Battle for Europe.” Thursday’s episode will focus on Poland.

If you have 45 minutes, this is worth it

The day the music burned