Italy just revoked the lease on Stephen Bannon's planned nationalist training academy


Former Breitbart executive and chief strategist for President Trump Stephen Bannon is likely pleased with how some Euro-skeptic parties fared in the recent European Union parliamentary elections, but his nationalist, populist vision for Europe was dealt a minor blow on Friday.
Italy's Culture Ministry announced it will revoke the lease on a state-owned monastery given to Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a right-wing Roman Catholic organization, which Bannon has helped fund. The institute is meant to serve as a training ground of sorts for European nationalists, and the monastery would have been converted into a school, which Politico writes would have been the movement's "spiritual home."
While Bannon is a close ally of Matteo Salvini, the leader of of Italy's far right political party, League, the country's more left-leaning politicians have objected to Bannon's involvement with the project. The village nearest the monastery also protested its conversion.
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The DHI will reportedly fight the culture ministry's ruling.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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