The Orange Vests (Gilet Arancioni) is a political movement founded in 2019 and led by former Carabinieri general Antonio Pappalardo.
They got inspired by the French movement of ‘Jilet Jaune’, showing more conservative and nationalist approach.
The Orange Vest Movement rose to prominence on Saturday 30 May 2021 for a series of street demonstrations in full coronavirus emergency, which took place in 29 Italian cities including Milan, Turin, Naples and Rome.
Such populist protests of this kind were carried previously out by the Forconi Movement, which with a series of roadblocks reached its maximum popularity between 2012 and 2013.

Among the promoters of the Forconi was always the Palermitan Antonio Pappalardo, a former general of the Carabinieri on leave, who from 1992 to 1994 was elected as an independent deputy from the ranks of the ‘Italian Socialdemocratic Party’ (PSDI), before moving
at the antipodes on to the National Alliance (AN), without being re-elected.

After a series of steps in various other parties, following the experience of the Forconi in 2016, Pappalardo gave life to the Italian Liberation Movement, in order to restore power to the sovereign people by removing it from Parliament as this would be abusive in his opinion.

Precisely following this logic, Antonio Pappalardo on 21 Dec. 2017 presented himself to the Quirinale to deliver an arrest report against the President of the Republic, Mr. Sergio Mattarella, as he would be a “political usurper” since the sentence of the Constitutional Court on the ‘Porcellum’ electoral law would make the Parliament illegitimate and, consequently, also the election of the President. For this reason, the former general was indicted on charges of insulting the President of the Republic.