text: Italian President urges separatists to turn back. MANTUA, Italy 1996-12-06 
   Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro visited the symbolic heartland of the separatist Northern League on Friday and appealed to its supporters to drop their campaign for a breakaway state. Addressing a convention on Italian unity in Mantua, where the party has set up its own " parliament of the north ", Scalfaro made a direct appeal to what he called " my friends from the League " to work instead for federal reform. " It is an invitation, a commitment, a promise. Let's march together, " Scalfaro, a northerner himself, said. " Help Italy to teach, to propose a capacity for strong local autonomy, for the federalism which can give new vigour to our blood. But turn back from the line you are taking now, " he said. Scalfaro was in Mantua to attend a ceremony commemorating the executions there by Austrian rulers in 1852 and 1853 of a group of Italians who had campaigned for national unity. He was jeered and whistled at by a small group of League supporters when he arrived for a visit marked by heavy security. Witnesses said the protesters were outnumbered by other Italians who waved tricolour flags in the national red, white and green or shouted " Viva Italia ". The League won more than eight percent of votes at the last general election in April on a federalist platform but its leader Umberto Bossi later switched to a separatist agenda. A three-day " independence " march along the Po River in September, culminating in a declaration in Venice of a self-styled " Republic of Padania ", flopped badly.
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