- published: 28 Feb 2012
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Giorgio Napolitano (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒordʒo napoliˈtaːno]; born 29 June 1925) is an Italian politician who has been the 11th President of Italy since 2006. A long-time member of the Italian Communist Party and later the Democrats of the Left, he served as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 1994 and as Minister of the Interior from 1996 to 1998.
Appointed as a Senator for life in 2005, he was subsequently elected as President of Italy on 10 May 2006; his term started with the swearing-in ceremony held on 15 May 2006. He is the first President of Italy to have been a member of the Italian Communist Party.
Giorgio Napolitano was born in Naples. In 1942 he matriculated at the University of Naples Federico II. He adhered to the local University Fascist Youth ("Gioventù Universitaria Fascista"), where he met his core group of friends, who shared his membership in the Italian fascism. As he would later state, the group "was in fact a true breeding ground of anti-fascist intellectual energies, disguised and to a certain extent tolerated".