Matteo Renzi
Matteo Renzi
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Matteo Renzi

Matteo Renzi (pronounced [matˈtɛːo ˈrɛntsi]; born 11 January 1975) is an Italian politician who served as prime minister of Italy from 2014 to 2016. He has been a senator for Florence since 2018. Renzi has served as the leader of Italia Viva (IV) since 2019, having been the secretary of the Democratic Party (PD) from 2013 to 2018, with a brief interruption in 2017.

After serving as the president of the province of Florence from 2004 to 2009 and the mayor of Florence from 2009 to 2014, Renzi was elected secretary of the PD in 2013, becoming prime minister the following year. At the age of 39 years, Renzi, who was at the time the youngest leader in the G7 and also the first-serving mayor to become prime minister, became the youngest person to have served as prime minister. While in power, Renzi's government implemented numerous reforms, including changes to the Italian electoral law, a relaxation of labour and employment laws with the intention of boosting economic growth, a thorough reformation of the public administration, the simplification of civil trials, the introduction of same-sex civil unions, and the abolition of many small taxes.

After the rejection of his constitutional reform in the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, Renzi formally resigned as prime minister on 12 December; his Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni was appointed his replacement. He resigned as secretary of the PD following defeat in the 2018 Italian general election. In September 2019, he left the PD and founded the Italia Viva party. In January 2021, Renzi revoked his party's support to the Conte II Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, which brought down the government and resulted in the 2021 Italian government crisis. In February 2021, Renzi's IV supported Prime Minister Mario Draghi's national unity government. Renzi has been described as a centrist and as a liberal by political observers.

Renzi was born on 11 January 1975 in Florence, the second of four children. His father Tiziano Renzi was a small business owner and Christian Democracy (DC) municipal councillor in Rignano sull'Arno. Renzi grew up in an observant Catholic family in Rignano sull'Arno. He studied in Florence at the classical lyceum (liceo classico) Dante Alighieri, where he passed his final exam with the grade of 60/60 but was nearly expelled because, as the students' representative, he refused to withdraw a school newspaper in which there was criticism of a maths teacher. During this time, he was a Scout in the Association of Catholic Guides and Scouts of Italy.

In 1999, Renzi graduated in law from the University of Florence with a thesis on Giorgio La Pira, the former DC mayor of Florence. He then went on to work for CHIL Srl, a marketing company focusing on leafleting owned by his family, co-ordinating the sales service of La Nazione. During this time, Renzi was also an association football referee at amateur level and a futsal player. In 1994, he participated as a competitor for five consecutive episodes in the television program La ruota della fortuna (a localised version of the United States game show Wheel of Fortune) hosted by Mike Bongiorno, winning Lit.48 million.

Renzi's interest in politics began in high school. He was one of the founders of the committee in support of Romano Prodi's candidature as Prime Minister of Italy in the 1996 Italian general election; that same year, Renzi joined the centrist Italian People's Party (PPI), and became its provincial secretary in 1999. He also married Agnese Landini, with whom he later had three children. In 2001, Renzi joined Francesco Rutelli's Daisy party, composed by members of the disbanded PPI.

On 13 June 2004, Renzi was elected president of the province of Florence with 59% of the vote, as the candidate of the centre-left coalition. He was the youngest person to become president of an Italian province. In the years as president of Florence province, Renzi expressed his ideas against "the political caste" and during his mandate reduced taxes and decreased the number of the province's employees and managers.

After five years as the president of Florence province, Renzi announced that he would seek election as the mayor of Florence. On 9 June 2009, Renzi, by now a member of the Democratic Party (PD), won the election on a second round vote with 60% of the votes, compared to 40% for his opponent Giovanni Galli. As the mayor, he halved the number of city councillors, installed 500 free WiFi access points across the city, reduced kindergarten waiting lists by 90%, and increased spending on social welfare programs and schools.

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