La Ligue du Nord et l'invention du « Padan

Having won its public by waging war against state bureaucratic waste, the parasitic South, and immigration (or immigrants), the Northern League had to then present a positive entity in the face of all these enemies – hence the invention of "Padany", or the territories of northern Italy. However, as an invention, the Padan nation has no roots in a historical, geographical or cultural reality. While certain party ideologues have a liberal conception of affiliation to Padany, which entails shared values such as work and liberty, they are a minority. Most seek to construct (often through a discourse of exclusion) a cultural community. But, facing weak results, a minority is tempted to put forth the idea of an "autochthonous" group, to which only descendants of the "original" inhabitants of the north, who were allegedly Celt, could aspire.