ROME -- Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right political party ‘Forza Italia’ held a press conference Thursday to provide “constructive criticism” of Matteo Renzi’s economic policies, treatment of the migrant crisis and the high government debt built up over his 1,000 days as Prime Minister, revealing to journalists “the facts that Renzi would not want you to see.”

 Claiming that they feel “a strong sense of duty to reveal the reality of the situation in Italy to its citizens,” representatives from the party explained some significant statistics which put into question the success of Renzi’s government.

 Firstly, according to Istat, the state-run statistics institute, 2015 saw 988,000 more Italian people suffering from relative or severe poverty, just as the fiscal pressure is currently at 49 percent.

 To add to this, the party, founded in Dec. 1993, revealed that there has been 106 billion euros of new government debt since Renzi’s arrival, along with 479,137 more immigrants arriving at Italian shores. In fact, 8,042 euros are spent every minute on accommodating such migrants, putting “huge strain” on the Italian economy.

 To contrast this, 208,826 Italians left their home country to emigrate elsewhere between 2014 and 2015.

 The slides continued onwards, revealing a “huge 65 billion” of debts not paid by the State to the country’s businesses, whilst concluding with the issue of Italy’s “0” influence within Europe, confirming that Renzi’s government “has always voted in favour of the Council of the E.U,” something Forza Italia finds to be somewhat detrimental.

 Throughout the conference, a poster displaying the smiling face of the Forza Italia party leader Berlusconi was visible from the side-lines, captioned by his words, “Italy is the country I love. Here I have my roots, my hopes, my horizons. Here I have learnt, from my father and from life, my vocation as a businessman. Here I have learnt my passion for freedom.”

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