By Stefania Fumo
ROME, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A Senate debate on a bill granting citizenship to foreign children born in Italy degenerated into violence on Thursday, with the education minister ending up in the infirmary after being shoved by brawling rightwing MPs.
Senators from the anti-immigrant Northern League, which made strong gains in local elections across Italy last Sunday, shouted insults at the government and waved signs saying "Stop the invasion" and "Italians first".
Education Minister Valeria Fedeli later tweeted that she is fine and that "attempts at bullying won't stop our civil rights battle".
Meanwhile, rightwing extremists clashed with law enforcement on the streets outside the Senate, where police fended them off with water cannon.
The so-called 'ius soli' ('law of the soil' in Latin) bill would grant citizenship to children born in Italy of foreign parents, and to children who have spent at least five years in the Italian school system.
The bill was first proposed by an immigrant rights campaign called Italia Sono Anch'Io (I Also Am Italy), which gathered 200,000 signatures on a petition to parliament in 2011-2012. It passed the Lower House in October 2015.
Supporters of the bill argue that it grants rights to children who are already de facto Italians, boosts Italy's ageing population, and contributes to the national economy by giving them a reason to stay in the country, work, consume, and pay taxes.
Opponents say it will give potential fundamentalist terrorists a legal foothold in the society, and is tantamount to an "ethnic substitution".
The numbers appear to back the notion that social inclusion of new arrivals makes good economic sense.
In 2015, 2.3 million foreign workers in Italy contributed 127 billion euros or 8.8 percent to national GDP, according to Sole 24 Ore business and financial newspaper.
Immigrants paid 11 billion euros into the public pension fund and seven billion euros in personal income tax a year, the paper said.
According to ISTAT statistics bureau, Italy's population has been declining since 2008, with fewer births than deaths and emigrants outnumbering immigrants.
Less than half a million children were born last year while over 615,000 people died.
Also in 2016, some 144,000 foreigners immigrated while some 115,000 Italians and about 42,500 foreigners emigrated, according to ISTAT.
An ageing population means there are more pensioners than workers, which is bad news for public coffers and for the economy.
The reform would confer citizenship on more than 800,000, or 80 percent, of foreign minors now living in Italy, according to the Leone Moressa Foundation, a think tank in Mestre near Venice that studies the economics of immigration.
As of December 31, Italy had a population of 60.6 million, of which 8.3 percent or just over five million are foreign, according to official statistics.
Non-Italian residents are from 200 different countries, with over 50 percent (more than 2.6 million) coming from another European country -- mostly Romania and Albania.
ISTAT added that 201,501 people became Italian citizens last year.
Local media have speculated the Italian government may put the bill to a confidence vote to bypass a mountain of 80,000 amendments filed by the Northern League.
It is unclear when a final vote on the Ius Soli bill will be held.
