"The response from the Spanish government has been acceptable," he said, praising Zapatero and Moratinos' "maturity" and blaming the affair on Europe's "fascist right".
But he would be vulnerable to Gianfranco Fini, the foreign minister, who is also deputy prime minister and leader of the second-biggest party on the right, the formerly neo-fascist National Alliance.
The sharp polarization, combined with fear, between left and right that was a legacy of the fascist period of Mussolini from 1917 to 1943, returned first in the form of a huge wave of strikes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and then in a deadly form of political violence.