Umberto Bossi, pivotal figure in Italian politics, dies aged 84

Umberto Bossi, the firebrand founder of Italy’s populist Northern League and one of the most influential -- and polarising -- figures of Italian politics, died on Wednesday aged 84, his party said. His death prompted swift reactions across the political spectrum. President Sergio Mattarella praised him as “a passionate political leader and sincere democrat”, while Premier Giorgia Meloni acknowledged his “fundamental contribution” to the formation of Italy’s first modern centre-right coalition. Bossi rose from modest origins to become the architect of a political movement that reshaped Italy’s post-war landscape. From the late 1980s onward, he gave voice to the growing frustrations of northern taxpayers, channelling regional grievances into a populist project centred on autonomy and, sometimes, outright secession. His populist slogan “Roma ladrona” (Thieving Rome) crystallised his critique of the central, corrupted state and became a rallying cry for a generation of disenchanted voters. Born on September 19, 1941, in Cassano Magnago, a small manufacturing town in the industrial heartland of northern Italy, Bossi officially entered national politics in 1987, earning the nickname “Il Senatur” (the Senator in Lombard dialect) as he ascended to Italy’s upper house.