Italy has seen a growing tide of racism since the re-election of Silvio Berluscioni last year, with mandatory fingerprinting of Gypsies and physical attacks on immigrants. Now its taken another step, with a government campaign to ban non-Italian food:

The drive to make Italians eat Italian, which was described by the Left and leading chefs as gastronomic racism, began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls.

Yesterday it spread to Lombardy and its regional capital, Milan, which is also run by the centre Right. The antiimmigrant Northern League party brought in the restrictions “to protect local specialities from the growing popularity of ethnic cuisines”.

There is confusion, however, over what is meant by ethnic. Mr Di Grazia said that French restaurants would be allowed. He was unsure, though, about Sicilian cuisine. It is influenced by Arab cooking.

This is a fundamentally illiberal move. Basic liberty of the person means that (within the bounds of food safety), you get to eat what you like; if Italians prefer kebabs to their traditional cuisine, then that's just something the proponents of Italian culinary purity will have to accept. But the real target here isn't so much the food, but the people selling it; by shutting them down, the Italian government hopes that they will simply go away. The aim here then is expressly racist, an attempt to drive out people of different cultures. That's wrong no matter how you look at it, and the Italian government needs to be called to account for it.