Italian President Giorgia Meloni has gone viral after he was caught taking a selfie with Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi at COP28 – but it's her phone case that has caught people's attention.
The case is a popular protector with messages that help anxiety sufferers by “boosting self-esteem by increasing your positive opinion of yourself and your confidence in your ability to achieve your goals.”
Phrases include “I stand behind” and “My fear does not define me.” Others say, “I give myself permission to take a break” and “I am enough.”
A spokesperson for Meloni, the leader of the right-wing populist Fratelli d'Italia party, has since explained that the case was attached to her phone by her seven-year-old daughter Ginerva.
In October, Meloni split from Ginerva's father, Andrea Giambruno, after he was caught on tape bragging about an affair and asking for a threesome.
Giorgia Meloni was pictured taking a selfie with Italian Prime Minister Narenda Modi during COP28
The case contains a number of 'positive affirmations' for anxiety patients
The selfie was shared on Instagram with the hashtag #Melodi and received 1.33 million likes
Giorgia Meloni was pictured alongside the Indian Prime Minister this weekend as she attended the UN's annual climate change conference in the UAE.
The photo she took received a whopping 1.33 million likes on Instagram, as a photo of her taking the photo went viral among Italian accounts.
“Looks like she's seen all the memes, I'm pretty sure they're making fun of us,” user textivist commented under the photo.
a tweet from @CrazyItalianPol, a popular account on
The commotion even inspired the Italian daily La Stampa to publish an editorial entitled 'Tell me which 'cover' you have and I'll tell you who you are: on Meloni's smartphone a manifesto against fear'.
The author wrote, translated from Italian: 'It is clear that for a political figure the choice of the mobile phone goes beyond its practical and aesthetic function.
“It's a message shouted at the top of your lungs, and its power is proportional to the power of the character it portrays on this cover.”
The journalist also mentioned fellow Fratelli d'Italia politician Ignazio La Russa, the current President of the Senate of Italy, who was pictured in 2018 wearing a plain black phone case with the words “100% MILF” printed on it.
When asked why he has the case, La Russa once asked told Italian media his wife received it as a gift from their son. She refused to use it, so he did.
'I accepted it because it says '100% MILF'. It seemed funny to me,” he said in a 2018 interview.
Users in Italian social media spaces also remembered politician Marta Fascina's interesting choice of phone case.
The glamorous Forza Italia politician was spotted drinking wine while holding her phone to her ear at a pizzeria in Naples in 2022. On the back of her phone: a photo of a younger Silvio Berlusconi, her husband, sitting next to her at dinner at the time.
Matteo Salvini, Italy's current deputy prime minister, was once too seen with an unusual campaign phone case reading “I am with Salvini” three years before he took office, X user CatiaMamone noted.
Fratelli d'Italia politician Ignazio La Russa with his 'funny' 100% MILF phone case in 2018
Marta Fascina wears a phone case featuring the younger Silvio Berlusconi, her husband
Forza Italia politician Marta Fascina pictured wearing her iconic Berlusconi phone case, undated
Positive affirmations are “positively charged statements, or statements used to challenge unhelpful or negative thoughts,” a “scientifically reviewed” article in Positive Psychology reported in 2019.
There is some evidence that repeating positive phrases can have an uplifting effect on mental health.
'Very briefly, self-integrity is related to our global self-efficacy– our perceived ability to control moral outcomes and respond flexibly when our self-concept is threatened. Thus, we as humans are motivated to protect ourselves from these threats by maintaining our own integrity,” the author noted.
Having a 'flexible, moral' self-identity, built through self-affirmation, 'means we can see different aspects of ourselves as positive and adapt much better to different situations'.
And 2016 research shows that neural pathways are built when people perform self-affirmation tasks.
When we choose to practice positive affirmations, we can “better see otherwise threatening information as more relevant and valuable to ourselves,” another study concluded.
Meloni implemented permanent mental health subsidies during the Covid pandemic, but patients receive less support than in other European countries.
Only three percent of Italy's healthcare budget is spent on mental health care – compared to around 10 percent in other high-income countries on the continent.
The Italian prime minister is one of thousands of attendees at this year's main UN climate event in Dubai.
About 400,000 people are expected to travel to Dubai for the annual UN Climate Change Conference between November 30 and December 12.
This includes 97,000 registered official delegates with access to the secure inner 'Blue Zone' for accredited government officials and businesses.
The conference, designed to help governments agree on policies to limit and manage environmental impacts, has grown significantly since its inception in the mid-1990s, when it attracted around 5,000 attendees annually.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (CL) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi laugh together during day one COP28 at Expo City Dubai on December 1, 2023
#Melodi appeared to be getting along well as they laughed ahead of a photo-op at COP28 Friday
The decision to host this year's COP in oil-rich Dubai has been met with some skepticism.
And the controversial summit head was criticized by climate leaders for saying there was “no science” to support claims that phasing out fossil fuels would help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
He has said his comments had been misinterpreted.
“Everything this presidency has worked on, and continues to work on, is focused on and revolves around science,” he told a news conference.
