Home » Nardella after the tackle of the Last Generation activist: «I’m an environmentalist like them, we work together. staged? I have to answer?” – The interview

Nardella after the tackle of the Last Generation activist: «I’m an environmentalist like them, we work together. staged? I have to answer?” – The interview

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Nardella after the tackle of the Last Generation activist: «I’m an environmentalist like them, we work together.  staged?  I have to answer?”  – The interview

The mayor of Firenze, Dario Nardella, has made many political bets during his career but he certainly didn’t expect that just a random episode would give him practically planetary popularity. When we trace him on the phone, he says he is still busy answering messages from all over the world, following the tackle of a Last Generation activist who had sprayed paint on the Town Hall, Palazzo Vecchio (today the damage has been quantified at 30,000 EUR). “They’ve also called me from other European countries,” he says Open – I even saw that the video is filming in Greece, in South America….».

Do you know that some people say that everything was prepared and that his reaction was too prompt?

«Do you think I agree with the Last Generation demonstrators? I have to answer? Let’s be serious… It’s rather true that it was a coincidence that even if I wanted to prepare it it wouldn’t have been like this, and the presence of the restorers with me at that very moment was very useful. We were there to inspect Piazza della Signoria and thanks to them we had one pressure washer and tools to be able to intervene immediately on the facade. From what the technicians later said, it was fundamental because the facade of Palazzo Vecchio is made with a stone from 300 extremely porous and would have absorbed a substantial portion of that paint. It would have been much more expensive, complicated and problematic to remove it».

But aren’t they washable paints?

«They explained to me that the term washable means little in the sense that it all depends on which paint on which surface. For example, it’s one thing to hit a smooth hard surface, quite another porous stones, particularly with these acrylic-based dyes. And anyway, washable or not, it doesn’t seem like a good justification anyway. What I find wrong is the gesture: culture, art are precious goods for humanity as much as nature».

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They do it, I quote their thoughts in summary, because otherwise climate change would not be among the political priorities at all…

«Fridays for future was born with a gesture, that of Greta Thunberg, absolutely non violent and it has become a worldwide movement. It is the demonstration that there is no need for gestures that risk generating unpopularity instead of producing consensus. Let me be clear, I am an environmentalist as much as the Last Generation guys. I’m just saying that the mayors, the local administrations, are not adversaries at all: every day we fight for the protection of the environment with public transport, the improvement of the waste cycle, investments in energy efficiency. I don’t understand why the protest should be directed against local administrations and cities which are the only true allies”.

Tomaso Montanari on the daily fact has written that in some cases you have authorized private initiatives that used the urban heritage of Florence exposing it to equally high risks.

«Montanari’s work is controversial with me. I find that this notation of yours has absolutely nothing to do with what happened”.

There are many actions that can deface the historical heritage, let’s just think of the impact of tourists….

«It seems to me a way to discuss something else. If we look at the facts, Florence is the city that spends the most public money on culture dedicated to its citizens, €119 each. Isn’t this a concrete gesture of attention to culture? In my opinion yes, a lot. I’m ready to discuss the commitment to cultural policies with any Italian art city, but this is a completely different matter, which I’m ready to discuss anywhere else. We were the first to block the opening of restaurants in the Unesco area, we are restoring the stone floor throughout the centre, name who is doing as much as us».

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Actually I don’t know, but is it the mayor who has to deal with the crimes? You could even hurt yourself falling… isn’t it better for the right person to intervene, perhaps solicited by her?

«He’s right, but they’re all good the next day. I read everything, even details on how I was dressed. Look, I think I did something as a citizen, in that moment I saw the house of my community under attack, a symbol for all of us and a universal heritage, and I did what I felt like doing with the Heart, I could not stand by and watch. In those moments you don’t have time to think, you just feel the danger of something that belongs to you. After that I didn’t use any kind of violence, I just made sure he finished what he was doing even though I know very well that some words shouldn’t be said, especially as mayor and if I had had a moment to think I wouldn’t have done it. However, I have received thousands of messages from people who tell me “I would have done the same thing”».

Did you get to talk to the activist then?

«Not with him but in a television confrontation I spoke with one of the leaders of the Last Generation. I asked him to look for more intelligent and correct, and no less effective, ways of tackling the issue using other forms of protest than those of attacking culture and art».

Politics does little about climate change, that’s a fact.

«It’s true, national politics is deaf to us too. I am president of Eurocities, the association of European mayors: we launched the goal of achieving carbon neutrality in 2040, 10 years before the European Union. I too think that the issue needs to be addressed but we need to make a pact between the younger generations and the mayors and act together. Let’s forget the paint and get to work.’

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