Since most sifters live in the US or in the Commonwealth countries, I've decided they will probably be intrested to know what's happening in continental Europe. I can write something about Italy, and I'd love if other fellow countrymen from northern regions would talk about their countries too
We often hear news about US, UK and France, but unless there are elections, seldom receive any news about other countries... but hey, Internet will save us all.

So, let's start issue #1.


The weird Italian royal family

As I hope most of you know, Italy is been a republic since after WWII. It wasn't a coup: we've lost (or won, depending on your point of view) the war, so after it we held a referendum to decide if we should've kept going on as monarchy or switched to republic.
Republic won, briefly, and the new republican government decided that the royal family had been a great failure for us, so they exiled them.

They, the Savoia, lived in Switzerland, and didn't recognize Italian government. When they wrote to the president for some reasons, they called him "senator".

A few years ago, for some reason I fail to understand, they were allowed to come back, take an oath, and gain citizenship.

Now they sued the state, asking 260 MILIONS of Euro (more or less 500 milions of Dollars) of moral damages, and they want back all their properties that were confiscated.

I can say only "WTF".



update: Amedeo di Savoia told, more or less, that his relatives are acting stupid and he has nothing to do with this initiative, he thinks he doesn't deserve any of this money nor do they.

At least there is someone with brains out there...



If sifters are intrested, maybe I'll post more. Maybe I'll cross-post them to main talk, maybe post them only in the politics talk, I don't know that as of now.