Franco Marini

"Renzi is like Grillo, he is the embodiment of political inconsistency serving third-party interests. (October 16 , 2012)"

"Renzi has unbridled ambition, sometimes he speaks without thinking, he's just looking for headlines. If he doesn't moderate this ambition, he'll end up going off the rails. (April 21, 2013)"

"(About [[w:Carlo Donat-Cattin]|Carlo Donat-Cattin]]]) A life characterised by a refusal to compromise. He paid a heavy price for this conception of political dignity, was not always understood, and many friends turned their backs on him."

"With Franco Marini as secretary of the CISL, we were at opposite ends of the trade union spectrum. He was to the right of Carniti, while I challenged Trentin from the left. [...] Franco Marini represented that part of the CISL that had undergone radicalisation in the 1970s and, with the capitalist restoration of the 1980s, had gradually regained control of the organisation, progressively marginalising Carniti's supporters and normalising the FIM, the metalworkers' union, in particular. He was a true Christian Democrat, not particularly left-wing within the party, indeed quite unpopular with De Mita and Martinazzoli's wing. But he was also the expression of a popular and mass idea of trade unionism and politics that has nothing to do with what is happening today. This is why, in today's politics, he could have ended up almost on the extreme left. Not because he had changed, he was always the same, but because the whole political spectrum had shifted to the right towards business and the market."

"[Regarding the upcoming elections for President of the Italian Republic in 2013] Franco Marini turned 80 last week and is preparing for his last attempt to crown a career marked by prudence, impartiality, good neighbourliness, and always in the name of popular wisdom, of which he is considered a masterful prophet."