“Enrico come, come you must bless me”, jokes a militant when the secretary of the Democratic Party arrives in the square. “You worked the miracle”, he exclaims enthusiastically. We went from “General Letta” with the helmet finished and the words “Enlist” even in the chats of the most critical 5-star deputies with sanctions and armaments in support of Ukraine, to “San Enrico” capable, through an exhausting moral operation. suasion, in a true prodigy: gather the whole left in a single square.

There is the unleashed Carlo Calenda – who as soon as he arrives attacks: “This is not an equidistant square, but stands with the Ukrainians against the Russian invader because sometimes peace must be defended even with clear and hard choices” – but also the promoter of last weekend’s pacifist demonstration in Rome Piazza San Giovanni, the secretary of the CGIL Maurizio Landini which reiterates as: “We are not equidistant, we are with the Ukrainians, but sending weapons is a mistake, it will not stop the war”. There is even a delegation of Forza Italia city councilors led by the senator Elio Vito. Is missing Giuseppe Conteit is true, but the M5s still sent a small representation headed by the Florentine by adoption, the former Minister of Justice Alfonso Bonafede.

Like any almost impossible operation, the price of ambiguity is discounted: the flags of peace are mixed with that of the Ukrainian community that is clamoring to send NATO planes to impose a no fly zone on Russia. Hypocrisy is held thanks to the nuances of meaning. To the subtle difference between saying that we are “all united against this war”, as Letta does as soon as he arrives, to saying that he is “for peace and at all costs”, like many others think of Piazza Santa Croce. It is a linguistic compromise found on a periphrasis: the war must end as soon as possible. It matters little that in the streets there are those who think that the solution is surrender to Putin and those who strongly support the need to continue arming the Ukrainian resistance.

As soon as he arrived, Letta did not do like the other leaders who, after a quick stage, quickly went to the “Parvis” area, the Florentine version and of the exceptional area. Because in an extraordinary place like Piazza Santa Croce there is no need, we speak directly from the top of the staircase leading to the church, from the churchyard. The secretary of the Democratic Party seeks a crowd bathclosely marked by the Tuscan governor Eugenio Giani – who wears a peace flag as a cloak and constantly scolds his collaborators “Come on, take a picture of me next to Henry” – and the young MEP Brando Benifei. Letta shakes hands, takes selfies, takes applause, participates in the unfolding of a giant European flag next to a Ukrainian banner. She then she stops right in the middle of the square. Here you listen to the speech on video link by Ukrainian President Vlodymir Zelensky. She looks concentrated at the big screen, applauds vigorously, then takes out her smartphone and begins to film as the many demonstrators around him are doing. While Zelensky speaks, Landini, Fratoianni, the representatives of the Anpi, those of the ambiguities neither with Putin nor with NATO, are there to listen to the Ukrainian president who once again asks for help: sanctions, weapons, no fly zone. The complexity and ambiguity of this square are revealed in an instant. Someone, with a little fear, applauds. There are rainbow flags, but there is also the leader of a country that for seventeen days, like the tolling of the bells with which the demonstration began, leads the resistance of those who do not want to surrender, as someone in the square hopes, but support, even concrete, to continue to resist. “In any case there will only be more deaths, the war must be stopped and Zelensky must surrender there is no other solution”, says Anna, almost 80, a partisan uncle “who would think differently from me”, and a past as an employee to Menarini.

His is only the popular version of the theories that Maurzio Landini has even more than just before: “To think that one of the largest and strongest in the world can be blocked by sending a few weapons is an act of cynicism, says the secretary of the CGIL.

Yet Mrs. Anna, like Landini and the secretary of Fiom Pisa, Mr. Marco Comparini, they are here too. “Because – the latter explains – it is true that in the square there are many who think only differently, but in the meantime we must all say together that the goal is one: to stop the war”. Miracle or hypocrisy? Certainly at the end of the event Enrico Letta goes to thank the mayor of Florence. Because Dario Nardella he is also the president of Eurocities, the association that brings together over 200 European cities, and which has this event at the same time in different squares in Europe. In short, much of the success is up to him. Read therefore blesses him: “You have shown great leadership”. Then he turns satisfied to the reporters: “Here Zelensky’s images will go around the world, they will strike the collective imagination, it was a very important moment internationally, we will stop this war”. “Even with new sanctions or new weapons?” Asks a journalist. “We will do what needs to be done,” Letta hisses before leaving the square.