Meloni heads Italy’s most rightwing government since the second world war. Italy’s criminal code punishes with a fine ranging from €1,000 to €5,000 anyone who “publicly defames the republic”, which includes the government, parliament, the courts and the army.
Italians where also the ones that invented the republic, so what?
Fascism was and will always be a disgrace in Italian history, but maybe you should research Piazzale Loreto to see how much people ended up liking fascism in the end.
Of course there are extremist idiots in Italy like in any other country, but Italy official position on it was made very clear.
Even making a fascist group or association is literally a crime in Italian law.
This doesn’t change that the current situation is very bad of course, but right wing populism and fascism are not nearly the same thing, even if one could lead to the other