Tag: Beppe Grillo

Giuseppe Conte: respected in legal and academic circles, can he survive in government? The man nominated as Italy’s prime minister on Wednesday may be respected in the legal and academic realms, but he is far removed from the complex, messy world of Italian politics – something that is of mounting concern to his parents. “He is already very important in his career, but look what happens when you get into politics: they throw mud.” There was a lot of mud thrown this week when Giuseppe Conte (53) emerged as the surprise pick to lead a coalition of Luigi Di Maio’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League, headed up by Matteo Salvini. The lawyer and professor at the University of Florence was accused of embellishing his university studies on his CV, while reports emerged that he had supported Stamina, a discredited stem cell therapy invented by the disgraced former professor Davide Vannoni. Beppe Grillo, the comedian who founded M5S, slammed the claims as “malicious gossip”. Patrizia Giunti, a friend and colleague at the University of Florence, described Conte as “attentive, generous and very graceful”. Childhood friend Antonio Placentino told local reporters that he “studied hard at school and was very reserved”. Conte graduated from Rome’s Sapienza University in 1988 and now lives in the capital, where he runs a law firm. He is an expert in arbitration, particularly in the areas of civil and commercial law. Conte came into contact with M5S in 2013, the year the party entered parliament for the first time, when he was asked to become a member of its council for administrative law.