Franco Piperno passed away

Franco Piperno, a historic representative of the extra-parliamentary left and one of the founders of Potere Operaio (along with Toni Negri and Oreste Scalzone), has died. He had been ill for some time, was originally from Catanzaro, and was 82 years old (born January 5, 1943). He was hospitalized at a health facility in Cosenza. Piperno taught physics at the University of Calabria and was a city councilor in Cosenza when Giacomo Mancini, the former national secretary of the Italian Socialist Party, was mayor.

Who was Franco Piperno?

Physicist, essayist and university professor Piperno’s name is also linked to the best-known events in which the extra-parliamentary left was at the centre. In 1979, he fled to France to take advantage of the so-called “Mitterrand doctrine” (a practice introduced in France that guaranteed protection to many Italian extremist militants) and to escape the so-called “April 7 trial”, in which many intellectuals and thinkers participated. Writers associated with the left were accused of extra-parliamentary crimes in those years for supporting, inspiring and partially coordinating various leftist acts of subversion and terrorism.

He was also the author of numerous political articles. He completed his career as a researcher at the Sapienza University of Rome, then as a professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan, the University of L’Aquila and abroad (from the University of Paris “PM Curie” to the Uqam University of Montreal and Edmonton). at the University of Calabria.

During the Calabrian period, he was the founder of the community radio Ciroma, a municipal councilor in Cosenza and an organizer of cultural and astronomy dissemination events. Piperno never left Arcavacata (a hamlet in the municipality of Rende in the province of Cosenza), where he lived with his partner Marta Petrusewicz.

Source: Today IT

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