Raggi was reportedly caught by surprise when a majority of politicians from her Five Star Movement and the far-right Brothers of Italy, a descendant of MSI, backed the move in a vote on Thursday.
Almirante established the party in 1946 in dedication to keeping the ideals of dictator Benito Mussolini alive, and led it until a year before his death in 1988. Almirante joined Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Movement at the age of 9.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, was also a member of the youth wing of MSI, while the father of Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the Five Star Movement, was an activist for the party.
Meloni’s party celebrated the approval on Thursday as a “historic victory for the Italian and Roman right”.
Raggi has asked Five Star Movement advisors to prepare a motion preventing the naming of streets after fascists or those who exposed themselves as anti-Semitic or racist.
The vote came after Raggi pledged to rename streets currently named after politicians who signed the anti-Semitic Manifesto of Race during the fascist era.
“Rome is anti-fascist,” Raggi declared in January, adding that she hoped the capital could set an example to other Italian cities in removing the names which “represent a shame for our country”.
2018 marks 80 years since the charter was published, preparing the way for the Racial Laws which came into force later in 1938. Under these laws, Italian Jews were stripped of their citizenship and banned from working in certain professions or attending school.
