Editing National Alliance (Italy) (section)

==History==

===Foundation===
National Alliance was launched in 1994 when the [[Italian Social Movement]] (MSI), the former [[neo-fascist]] party, merged with conservative elements of the former [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy]], which had disbanded in 1994 after two years of scandals and various splits due to [[political corruption]] at its highest levels, exposed by the ''[[Mani pulite]]'' investigation, and the [[Italian Liberal Party]], disbanded in the same year. It was officially launched in January 1995. Former MSI members dominated the new party, and the MSI's last leader, [[Gianfranco Fini]], was elected the new party's first leader.

The AN logo followed a template very similar to that of the [[Democratic Party of the Left]], incorporating the MSI logo in a small roundel of the AN logo as a means of legally preventing others from using it. The name was suggested by an article on the Italian newspaper ''[[Il Tempo (newspaper)|Il Tempo]]'' written in 1992 by [[Domenico Fisichella]], a prominent conservative academic. Starting in the 1990s, the MSI gradually transformed into a mainstream [[right-wing]] party, culminating in its 1995 dissolution into AN.

===Government participation===
[[File:Gianfranco Fini 2004.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Gianfranco Fini]] in 2004]]
The party was part of all three [[House of Freedoms]] coalition governments led by [[Silvio Berlusconi]]. Fini was nominated Deputy Prime Minister after the [[2001 Italian general election]] and was Foreign Minister from November 2004 to May 2006.

When Fini visited [[Israel]] in late November 2003 in the function of Italian Deputy Prime Minister, he labelled the racial laws issued by the [[Italian fascism]] regime in 1938 as "infamous", as also [[Giorgio Almirante]], historic leader of MSI, had done before.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ildomenicale.it/approfondimento.asp?id_approfondimento=16 |title=Il Domenicale<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=28 May 2008 |archive-date=23 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220923165429/http://www.ildomenicale.it/approfondimento.asp?id_approfondimento=16 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He also referred to the [[Italian Social Republic]] as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past, and considered fascism part of an era of "absolute evil", something which was hardly acceptable to the few remaining hardliners of the party. As a result, [[Alessandra Mussolini]], the granddaughter of the former fascist dictator [[Benito Mussolini]], who had been at odds with the party on a number of issues for a long time, and some hardliners left the party and formed [[Social Action]].<ref name="Bardi"/><ref name="Ignazi">Piero Ignazi, ''Partiti politici in Italia'', Il Mulino, Bologna 2008, pp. 27-31.</ref>

In occasion of the [[2006 Italian general election]], AN ran within the House of Freedoms, with new allies. The centre-right lost by 24,000 votes in favour of the centre-left coalition [[The Union (political coalition)|The Union]]. Individually, AN received nearly 5 million votes, amounting to 12.3%. In July 2007, a group of splinters led by [[Francesco Storace]] formed [[The Right (Italy)|The Right]], which was officially founded on 10 November. Seven MPs of AN, including [[Teodoro Buontempo]] and [[Daniela Santanchè]], joined the new party.

===The People of Freedom===
In November 2007, [[Silvio Berlusconi]] announced that Forza Italia would have soon merged or transformed into [[The People of Freedom]] (PdL) party.<ref>[http://www.skylife.it/html/skylife/tg24/politica.html?idvideo=56053 Sky tg24 – Tutte le notizie in formato video<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615195058/http://www.skylife.it/html/skylife/tg24/politica.html?idvideo=56053 |date=15 June 2009 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.corriere.it/politica/07_novembre_18/berlusconi_partito_popolo_italiano.shtml «Oggi nasce il partito del popolo italiano». Corriere della Sera<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[http://www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/visualizza_fdg.html_65043240.html Prodi: grandi coalizioni non servono. Veltoni vedra' Fini e Berlusconi] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217055735/http://www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/visualizza_fdg.html_65043240.html|date=17 December 2007}}</ref>

After the sudden fall of the [[Prodi II Cabinet]] in January 2008, the break-up of [[The Union (political coalition)|The Union]] and the subsequent political crisis which led to a fresh general election, Berlusconi hinted that Forza Italia would have probably contested its last election and the new party would have been officially founded only after that election. In an atmosphere of reconciliation with Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi also stated that the new party could see the participation of other parties.<ref>[http://www.corriere.it/politica/08_gennaio_25/berlusconi_napoli_a48218f8-cb73-11dc-9e0e-0003ba99c667.shtml «Via l'Ici e stretta sulle intercettazioni» Corriere della Sera<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Finally, on 8 February, Berlusconi and Fini agreed to form a joint list under the PdL banner, allied with [[Lega Nord]] (LN).<ref>[http://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/191851/notiziario-antiproibizionista-del-25-ottobre-1999 Svolta di Berlusconi, arriva il Pdl: "Forza Italia-An sotto stesso simbolo" - LASTAMPA.it<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> After the victory of the PdL in the [[2008 Italian general election]], AN was merged into the PdL in early 2009.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5039109/Mussolinis-heirs-merge-with-Silvio-Berlusconis-Forza-Italia-party.html Mussolini's heirs merge with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party] The Telegraph. 23 March 2009</ref>

During AN's last congress, it was decided that a [[Foundation (nonprofit)|foundation]] would manage the assets and the political legacy of MSI/AN; as a result, in 2011 the National Alliance Foundation was established.<ref name="Il Foglio"/><ref name="Il Giornale"/><ref name="FAN"/> In 2014 the Foundation, which has been successively led by [[Franco Pontone]], [[Franco Mugnai]] and [[Giuseppe Valentino]], gave the [[Brothers of Italy]] (FdI), a political party formed by former AN members who had splintered from the PdL and who were led by La Russa and [[Giorgia Meloni]], the authorisation to use AN's symbol.<ref name="ANSA"/> Former AN members have since been active in several parties, but mostly in FdI, however the Foundation continues to have former AN members of all ideological stripes in its ranks, including those who are now members of the new [[Forza Italia (2013)|Forza Italia]], the new [[Lega (political party)|Lega]] and the most-recently formed [[Independence (Italian political party)|Independence]].