Silvio Berlusconi, Italian businessman and former prime minister, is dead

Unstoppable figure of Italian politics, Silvio Berlusconi died at the age of 86, Italian media announced on Monday. Tributes are already multiplying in the Italian political class, starting with the head of government, Giorgia Meloni. “Silvio Berlusconi was above all a fighter. He was a man who was not afraid to defend his convictions and it was precisely his courage and his determination that made him one of the most influential men in the history of Italy”, a- she said in a video sent by her cabinet.

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, traveling in the province of Novara, asked for a minute of silence, describing him as "a great man and a great Italian". “He leaves a huge void because he was brilliant,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also reacted on Twitter. “An era is over, a page is closing”.

First a businessman before getting involved in politics, "Il Cavaliere", as he was nicknamed in his country, was three times head of the Italian government, more than nine years in total, a record. Born in 1936 in Milan, the businessman notably founded the media group Mediaset, of which he was still the main shareholder. In France, he launched La Cinq in 1986, a short-lived private television channel.

With his centre-right Forza Italia party, he reigned supreme over Italian politics. Despite numerous cases, from the Rubygate scandal and his "Bunga Bunga" parties to his conviction for tax evasion in the Mediaset affair - which earned him a sentence of ineligibility, canceled a few years later - Silvio Berlusconi has always kept his influence... and its capacity for harm.

Close to the head of the far-right government Giorgia Meloni, who came to power in October 2022 and whom he had propelled to minister of youth in 2008, “Il Cavaliere” proved to be a somewhat cumbersome support. His positions on the war in Ukraine, believing that Zelensky is responsible for the aggravation of tensions with Russia, have notably earned him numerous criticisms.

Disappointment in the Europeans in 2019 (8.78% of the votes for his list), withdrawal from the race for the succession of President Sergio Mattarella in 2022... Silvio Berlusconi has experienced his crossing of the desert in recent years, before being re-elected senator last October, nine years after being stripped of his mandate for his conviction in the Mediaset affair.

A symbolic victory for the political beast, overtaken by health problems. At the beginning of April, at the age of 86, he had been hospitalized for heart problems, and had announced that he was suffering from chronic leukemia and a lung infection.