From the batons to the students to the Pioltello case, when the Colle raises its voice

Operative silences' have been his way of intervening in the most heated moments of politics in his second seven-year term. More and more often, Sergio Mattarella is breaking the mould to which he himself wished to imprint his mandate. He did so - at the end of February - with the decisive reprimand to Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi ("never batons on boys") after the police charges against demonstrators in Pisa. He retorted in early March to point out that his signature on the laws he enacts does not necessarily bring with it their approval. Then, again, he intervened on the Pioltello affair, praising the "precious work" of the teachers, at the centre of a media (and political) storm for the decision to close the school for the end of Ramadan. A little more than a month, then, in which the Head of State, motu proprio, chose to call everyone to "an overabundance of responsibility" as he had the opportunity to say to the Prison Police corps - praised for their difficult task - but also called into question for the excessive number of suicides in prison.

Evidently tired of the jibes that increasingly invaded the Quirinale, both from the right (including the government) and from the left, Mattarella was forced on 5 March to a repetition of constitutional law, the summary of which is: stop pulling me by the jacket, there is the Charter to explain everything. "Fortunately I am a president and not a sovereign" who, as in the days of the Statuto Albertino, only signed laws if he liked them. "In Italy there is now the Republic, a very clear division of powers and it no longer works like that. The head of state has the duty to promulgate laws even if he does not like them or does not agree with them'. A Mattarella who thus dedicates the heart of his message to redefining his own role, which seems to be stretched to the liking of the parties and often used instrumentally.

The images of the boys shot by officers in Pisa on 24 February shook Mattarella, and not a little. In an irritating move, he called the Minister of the Interior to point out, 'finding agreement', that 'the authority of the forces of law and order is not measured by truncheons but by the ability to ensure security while protecting the freedom to publicly express opinions'. 'With the boys - the harshest phrase - truncheons express a failure'.

At a time when politics was chasing the record numbers of suicides among prisoners in jail (one every 60 hours), turning them into a new battleground, Mattarella tackled the issue head-on during a meeting at the Quirinale with the prison police - whom he thanked for their efforts and 'sacrifices' - but whom he also called for an 'extra measure of responsibility' given the scale of the phenomenon.

"I received and carefully read your letter and, in thanking you, I would like to tell you that I very much appreciate it, just as - beyond the single episode, which is in fact of modest importance - I appreciate the work that the teaching staff and the institute bodies do in carrying out a precious and particularly demanding task". A few words, but unexpected, those that the president wrote to the vice-principal of the Iqbal Masih school in Pioltello, Maria Rendani, who had addressed him and invited him to visit the institute.