Identité politique et territoire : le discours stigmatisant de la Lega – Noi con Salvini / Political identity and territory: The stigmatizing speech of the Lega – Noi con Salvini

This article attempts to describe from a discursive point of view the political repositioning of the Northern League regarding the defence of Italian territory against “illegals”. This featured a shift from the northern secessionism of Umberto Bossi (national secretary from 1989 to 2013) to the nationalist enlargement to the south of Matteo Salvini, current leader of the party. The transformation of the territorial political identity of this dual political formation is put into discourse both as a discriminating and multiple word towards migrants who have arrived in Italy (clandestini ‘illegal immigrants’, delinquenti ‘offenders’) and as a standardizing and positive word for Italians (gente ‘people’).