Francesco Roccella (2 January 1924 – 22 December 1992) was an Italian journalist and politician. Born in

Riesi Riesi is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Caltanissetta in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about south of Caltanissetta. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 11,678 and an area of .All de ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, Roccella was one of the founders of the Radical Party (PR) in 1955. Among the policies he and his party advocated was the legalisation of

abortion in Italy Abortion in Italy became legal in May 1978, when Italian women were allowed to terminate a pregnancy on request during the first 90 days. A proposal to repeal the law was considered in a 1981 referendum, but was rejected by nearly 68% of voters; ...

. He was elected to the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

in the 1979 general election, by the

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

constituency. He failed re-election in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

, but returned to the chamber in July 1984 after the resignation of Giovanni Negri. In February 1986, he moved to the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded in Genoa in 1892, ...

(PSI), with whom he served the remainder of his term until 1987. From 18 November 1991 to 1 September 1992, he was the mayor of his hometown. Roccella married the feminist painter Wanda Raheli with whom he had a daughter, Eugenia, who also became a politician and journalist. Briefly a candidate for his party in the late 1970s, she returned to politics in the 2000s espousing social conservative views including opposition to abortion, and was named Minister for Family, Natality and Equal Opportunities in the

Meloni Cabinet The Meloni government is the 68th government of the Italian Republic, the first led by the president of Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, who is also the first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister of Italy. The government was announced on ...

in 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roccella, Franco 1924 births 1992 deaths People from Riesi Radical Party (Italy) politicians Italian Socialist Party politicians Deputies of Legislature VIII of Italy Deputies of Legislature IX of Italy Mayors of places in Sicily