Just one cent to add to Michele's statements.
"First, the protest started just few weeks after Berlusconi's party split in two, threatening its political prominence and relevance. After the split, Berlusconi's Forza Italia moved clearly on the extreme-right side of the Parliament. If you take this into consideration, and you add to the equation the facts that the 'movement' started in Sicily (where Berlusconi has some 'grass-roots' connections) and that it is largely supported by Casa Pound's fascist, Beppe Grillo's, and the alike... you may start to consider the option that this 'revolution' is just a political movement orchestrated by a definite portion of Italian's political spectrum: the far right (Gad Lerner, a prominent Italian journalist, advanced the same claim: http://www.gadlerner.it/2013/12/10/una-regia-di-estrema-destra-dietro-la-protesta-dei-forconi)"
Michele, I think your quotation is absolutely right. This "movement" just started last year supported by trucking industry lobbies from Sicily (historically, one of the first electoral basis of Berlusconi). I thought the same.
I was driving last week here in Veneto, and the motorway was occupied by fifty people that were waving the "San Marco" flag, symbol of "Venetismo", a -supposed- cultural movement to claim the independence of Veneto from Italy in the name of a -supposed- Venetian identity, without basis of historically and reality, just a masked local folklore. And, substantially, just one of the numerous separatist movements quiet close to Italian Right, that can pursue its political survival also manoeuvring this and other small parties or movements.
Giuseppe
