Petrella Affair

Controversy following her meeting with Marina Petrella. October 2008

In October 2008, the “Petrella Affair” revived the debate on the French State’s position with regard to former activists and former terrorists from the Italian far left who are in exile in France. Marina Petrella, born in 1954, was a former member of the Red Brigades sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of a police superintendent, kidnapping of a magistrate and four other assaults. She escaped Italian justice just after her sentence was pronounced on March 6, 1992. She was arrested in France on August 21, 2007, and an extradition procedure to send her to Rome was in progress. As for Cesare Battisti, it is President Mitterrand’s verbal commitment made in 1985 that is being called into question (Doctrine Mitterrand): right to asylum when all links with terrorist activities and murder have been broken. There were several reactions after the extradition order was repealed — and the intervention by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Carla Bruni with the French President (Marina Petrella: 40kg, in depression, refusing to eat): “It is as though there were no democratic guarantees in Italy and it was up to France to protect former Red Brigade members from potential inhuman treatment in Italy“, stated Sabina Rossa (Corriere de la Serra), daughter of Guido Rossa, a worker killed by the Red Brigades. Isabella Bertolini, Italian conservative MP said : “Giving humanitarian reasons for justifying the non-extradition of former Red Brigade member Petrella, sentenced for murder, kidnapping and theft, looks like a very bad joke“. The decision was, however, applauded by the Human Rights League and the left in France. For François Hollande (PS), “this woman should never have been bothered in that she had given up all political activity and she was living in France quite peacefully“.