Italy must be broken up, says Berlusconi's wife

Rome: Silvio Berlusconi's wife has added her voice to the growing calls for Italy to be partitioned.

In an interview with La Stampa, Veronica Lario, 51, said: "Italy has never been well-suited to being a single country, and has never matured enough to become one. There is no longer any value in a unified Italy."

Lario, a former showgirl, married Italy's prime minister-elect 18 years ago after catching his eye on a television show. Since then, she has rarely courted publicity, but does run Il Foglio, an influential newspaper.

The prospect of a devolved Italy has grown significantly in recent weeks since the Northern League, a secessionist party, won strong support in the general election.

Umberto Bossi, its volcanic leader, has repeatedly threatened to "take up arms" against the "corrupt" politicians in Rome who divert the wealth of Italy's North to the impoverished South.

Secessionist party's fan

Lario disclosed that she was a fan of Bossi and added that it was time for Italy to stop being "snobbish" about the League, whose politicians are frequently coarse and populist.

"This is a disillusioned country, even after Berlusconi's victory," she said. "The League expresses concrete demands from the most productive part of Italy, which is tired of dragging the rest of the country and does not find itself represented by the Left wing."

Berlusconi, who will find it difficult to maintain a majority in parliament without the support of the League, is likely to make Bossi a cabinet minister. He could also appoint Roberto Calderoli, Bossi's second-in-command, as deputy prime minister.

In the past, Calderoli has called for immigrants to be shot in their boats.

"If the people have voted for Calderoli," said Lario, "that gives him credibility."