Rome [Italy], July 28: Italian Prime Minister GiorgiaMeloni's partner has criticized German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach after his tweet questioning Italy's future as a holiday destination amid blistering heatwaves.
Andrea Giambruno, a television journalist and presenter for the private channel Rete 4, gave the 60-year-old German Social Democrat (SPD) politician a proper dressing-down on his own show.
"If you don't like it, stay at home," Giambruno said during the programme on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the clip from the broadcast spread rapidly on social media and in the Italian media.
With a heatwave hitting Italy in recent days and weeks, Lauterbach wrote on Twitter, "The heatwave is mind-blowing here. If it continues like this, these holiday destinations will have no future in the long term. Climate change is destroying southern Europe. An era is coming to an end." Lauterbach himself was in the Mediterranean country on holiday at the time.
"For 20, 30 years the Germans have somehow had to explain to us how we have to live," Giambruno griped during a discussion in the studio.
"Merkel comes here, he comes here: If you don't like it, stay at home," Giambruno continued, referring to former German chancellor Angela Merkel's regular Italian holidays.
"Stay in the Black Forest, that's better, right?" he quipped. Giambruno has already attracted attention in recent days with controversial comments on the heatwave.
Source: Qatar Tribune