Franco Rocchetta

Franco Rocchetta (born Venice, 12 April 1947) is a Venetian liberal politician, entrepreneur, philologist and history populariser, who is usually described as the "father" of present-day Venetian nationalism.

Since his university years, Rocchetta has been a Venetist, a Europeanist, and a passionate of historical, archeological and linguistic studies, and, as such, he was active in Radical and green movements. Before coming of age, he was investigated for separatist writings on walls and for his solidarity with South Tyrolean activists.

During the 1960s he was a member of the Italian Republican Party and the Italian Communist Party, which he left in order to join Lotta Continua in 1969.

In 1978 Rocchetta founded the "Venetian Philological Society" (of which he was elected president).

In 1980 Rocchetta, who had been a candidate in the list led by Valdostan Union in the 1979 European Parliament election, was instrumental in the foundation of Liga Veneta, whose goal was to reorganise an independent Venetian Republic within a federal Europe. Rocchetta was thus Liga Veneta's long-time national president and practical leader, having seized party's control over Achille Tramarin in 1984 and having been elected to the Regional Council of Veneto in 1985.

Having been a founding member of Lega Nord, along with Umberto Bossi, Franco Castellazzi, Giorgio Conca, Gipo Farassino, Riccardo Fragassi, Marilena Marin, Bruno Ravera, Francesco Speroni and Carla Uccelli, in 1989, Rocchetta led Liga Veneta into Lega Nord, which became a federation from a confederation, in 1991. During the party's founding federal congress, he was elected federal president, a role he would keep until 1994. In the 1992 general election he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies and, after the 1994 general election, he joined Berlusconi I Cabinet as undersecretary of Foreign Affairs.

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