Minister of Reforms and Federalism Umberto Bossi of Italy

This picture has been released into the public domain

In that period Bossi met his second wife, Manuela Marrone.

In 1998, Bossi received a one-year suspended prison sentence for the incitement of violence after he uttered the following sentence at a Lega Nord meeting: "We must hunt down these rascals (neo-fascists), and if they take votes from US, then let's comb the area house by house, because we kicked the fascists out of here once before after the war.

It's earned him comparisons to the Austrian right-winger Jörg Haider, although the boorish Bossi is far from Haider's slick political style.

Bossi was born in 1943 in the small town of Varese, and his early career had few of the hallmarks of a political aspirant.

Bossi was anxious to maintain tight control over his party, and new joiners had to serve a six-month probation with Supporter status before they were able to apply for promotion to Ordinary Militant.

Since toning down the Padanian rhetoric, Bossi has turned his anger towards the EU, while seeing federalism becoming a mainstream buzzword in Italian politics.

Resuming a Lega tactic of 1990, Bossi has also taken a hard line on immigration.

When nearly a thousand Kurds attempted to enter the country after their ship sank off Catania, Bossi described anxieties for their condition as 'crocodile tears' and asked for them to be sent back to Iraq.

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers.

Umberto Bossi is within the scope of WikiProject Italy, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Italy on Wikipedia.

A rumour that has not been countered by Bossi is that he gave a fake graduation party, allegedly to convince his mother he had graduated.

Umberto Bossi is often described by some as a neo-fascist, racist.

Bossi is one of the few men in Italy with little respect for the orange-skinned billionaire.

Bossi was a magnetic figure, pledging boycotts of southern mozzarella and telling his followers to learn from the movie Braveheart.

But in 2004, just as Bossi had reached the cabinet as minister for devolution, disaster struck.

Bossi has scuppered his governments before and will surely do so again.

The partys membership in government swelled after the elections of 1992, when Bossi was voted into the Chamber of Deputies.

Umberto Bossi was born in 1943 in Cassano Magnago, in the province of Varese (Lombardy.

Before becoming a politician, Bossi was a sympathiser of the Italian Communist Party in his early years.

Southern ancestry), low-cultured maverick.

Judge: Jewish cop can wear beard â¦ 8/8/08 weddings popular in San Francisco â¦ Owner fined for smoking in closed hotel â¦ Obscene gesture toward Rome not a crime â¦ Watercooler stories from UPI.

Known for his abrasive, aggressive and sometimes obscene outbursts, Mr Bossi is a charismatic, street-level populist from simple origins – the antithesis to the extremely wealthy, flamboyant, ever-smiling, flirtatious and wily media tycoon.

To strengthen regional identity, Mr Bossi has manipulated intolerance to others, primarily to immigrants who are branded a social and cultural threat, and more widely to the perceived threats of globalisation.

Only those with a work contract and a residence permit can stay,” Mr Bossi was quoted as saying by the daily Corriere della Sera in 2002 after the passing of the Bossi-Fini law on immigration.

Despite his frustration with Mr Berlusconi’s more pragmatic approach to immigration and limited steps towards federalism, Mr Bossi remained loyal to the second Berlusconi government, from 2001 to 2006.

In that period, however, Mr Bossi was weak.

When the League performed poorly again in the 2006 elections, Mr Bossi was written off by many commentators as a relic whose time had passed.

His government colleague Italian Northern League leader Umberto Bossi has objected to the use of public land for mosques for the "Muslim invaders," and his party has called for Muslims to be refused entry into Italy.

return encodeURIComponent(' A blunt 52-year-old politician from the economically vibrant Lombardy region, Umberto Bossi is the leader of a movement that caught the wind of taxpayer revolt when the first signs of recession appeared in the 1980s.

A blunt 52-year-old politician from the economically vibrant Lombardy region, Umberto Bossi is the leader of a movement that caught the wind of taxpayer revolt when the first signs of recession appeared in the 1980's.

Questa la odierna homepage del sito italiano di Ryanair.

Bossi is hospitalized in Switzerland, where he is recovering from heart problems and a stroke in March that left him weak and speaking with difficulty.

Bossi has decided to maintain his word and not make the government fall," said Roberto Calderoli, the League's Senate whip.

Bossi had largely gone along with pension reform, aimed at reining in Italy's generous system, because of loyalty to Tremonti.

federalist states, with Padania being the north most state.

WikipediaBorn:1943Related Searches:Lega NordNorthern LeagueautonomyItalianfrom the Province of VaresepoliticianAutonomous entityindependencefrom LombardyConvicted Italian MPsicilianRelated People to Umberto BossiMario BorgheziofriendRoberto CalderolifriendRoberto MaronifriendSilvio BerlusconifriendSee more related peopleNews About Umberto BossiUmberto Bossi had a news item on Live Search NewsAlitalia: Bossi, Malpensa se la cavera'document.

write(humane_date("2009-01-13 14:12:42"))Umberto Bossi had a news item on Live Search NewsSilvio, Walter e la ragnatela «padana» di Umberto B.

write(humane_date("2009-01-11 15:26:40"))Umberto Bossi had 4 news items on Live Search NewsAlitalia, Berlusconi ribadisce intesa con AF e rassicura Bossi su.

In an interview that sparked considerable controversy, Umberto Bossi said he feared that, if the 2006 constitutional referendum did not succeed (as, indeed it did not), maybe someone would pursue non-democratic means to obtain autonomy for the North.

stance, although it admires the American federal political system, and indeed its MPs opposed both the Gulf War in 1991 and the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 in the name of pacifism, and Umberto Bossi supported and personally met Slobodan Milosević during that war.

As a symbolic act of birth of the new nation, Bossi took a bottle of water from the springs of River Po (which in Latin is Padus, hence Padania), which was poured in the sea of Venice by a little girl a few days later.

For a man who was pronounced politically, and almost literally, dead just a few years ago, Umberto Bossi has made a remarkable comeback.

The head of a small xenophobic political party, Bossi has emerged as Italys kingmaker, the power player who was key in returning Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to office in recent elections and who will continue to call many of theshots.

Bossi was named minister for reforms in the new government, an ideal platform for changing the law to give more autonomy to thenorth.

The Northern League party that Bossi leads has long flirted with secession, even while he and his lieutenants have served key ministerial posts in three governments of the Italian Republic.

Since he burst onto the scene in 1991 claiming a national identity for "Padania," his name for the comparatively rich regions around the Po River Valley from Turin to Venice Bossi has exhibited a knack for both vulgarity and political agility.

While Bossi was ranting on Sunday against southern teachers being sent to work in northern schools, he cited the national anthem, whose words were written in 1847 by Goffredo Mameli to encourage the peninsula's jumble of regions to unite into the Italian state.

But "from the Alps to Sicily," as Mameli put it, many Italians are united in wondering what plans Umberto Bossi has next for a country he has pledged to serve but can barely stand.