FAR-RIGHT Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s plans to deport Roma migrants has led to comparisons with the country’s fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini.

Mr Salvini has ordered a census of the country’s Roma community, promising to drive foreigners out of Italy in what has been branded an “ethnic cleansing programme.”

The plans to establish a new “register,” with all non-Italian members of the Roma community facing expulsion, have led to clashes with the League’s coalition partners in the Italian government.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that the plans went “too far,” while Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio said Mr Salvini’s order was “unconstitutional.”

Mr Salvini has frequently targeted the country’s sizeable Roma community, branding them “Gypsy thieves,” calling for camps to be burned down and for the deportation of non-Italians.

The anti-immigration minister recently blocked a brimming Mediterranean migrant rescue ship from docking in Italy, forcing it to take the long journey to a warmer welcome in Spain.

The coalition government plans to deport half a million people as part of its programme.

Centre-left Democratic Party MP Chiara Gribaudo warned: “The way is short from a census to a concentration camp. Salvini apparently decided to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the racial laws” — legislation introduced under fascist dictator Mussolini.

There are an estimated 100,000 to 180,000 Roma in Italy with many living in camps across the country. They have suffered generations of persecution; right-wing former PM Silvio Berlusconi even roped in the Red Cross to assist in a 2008 “census.” Mussolini called Roma “subhumans”and started expelling them in 1926. In the following two decades it is estimated that more than one million Roma people were killed in the extermination camps of Europe, alongside Jews and other targeted groups.

Mr Salvini claimed he ordered the census to help “those poor children who are brought up in these camps surrounded by theft and illegality.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to help Italy stop immigration into the European Union during a meeting with Mr Conte in Berlin on Monday.

“We want to support Italy’s desire for solidarity, and also hope that Germany receives understanding when it comes to European solidarity on the question of migration,” she said.

The pair discussed plans to strengthen Frontex, the EU’s external border police, and agreed that EU asylum applications should be processed in origin or transit countries before migrants enter the bloc.

Mr Salvini plans to meet Pope Francis this week to discuss the issue of immigration.