A dramatic turn has come in the seemingly endless legal saga surrounding the Ustica massacre. Rome’s prosecutor office has changed course.

On Wednesday, Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi will personally tell the judge overseeing the preliminary investigation that he intends to withdraw the request to close the case and continue the investigation.

 A new development emerged in recent days: France, through diplomatic channels, has signaled a renewed willingness to cooperate with Italian judicial authorities. Several requests for legal assistance have been pending between Rome and Paris for years. Some went unanswered; others received responses that Italian authorities considered evasive. But in September 2026, French judicial authorities changed course.

The development may not have come as a surprise, given what Daria Bonfietti, President of the committee representing the victims’ families, revealed Tuesday morning at a news conference in the Senate.

“We know that Giorgia Meloni responded to a request from us and raised the issue of the unanswered requests for legal assistance during her bilateral meeting with President Macron. We thank her,” Bonfietti said.

All of this points to a breakthrough — although only a first step — that was far from certain.

 First and foremost, there is a convergence of views between Meloni and Bonfietti. Bonfietti has the backing of a broad cross-section of opposition lawmakers, who were voicing their support for her again yesterday morning. Thanks to the good offices of Senator Valter Verini, a Democrat who has maintained a personal channel to Meloni dating back to the days when she was merely a City Councilor in Rome and he was Walter Veltroni’s Chief of Staff, the two women spoke directly.

As early as June, Palazzo Chigi allowed word to spread that the State Attorney’s Office would side with the civil plaintiffs in opposing the dismissal of the case.

But there is more. Undersecretary to the Prime Minister Alfredo Mantovano has informally indicated that, should the case go to trial, Palazzo Chigi would join the proceedings as a civil party against the alleged perpetrators of the 1980 massacre.

 Meloni therefore urged Macron to take an interest in the Ustica case during their bilateral meeting on June 25. Bonfietti — as well as Verini, Ilaria Cucchi of the Greens and Left Alliance, and Ivan Scalfarotto of Italia Viva — welcomed the move. This, too, represents an unexpected instance of cross-party cooperation.

 “Now we are eagerly awaiting the French response,” Bonfietti said, adding that she also expects more from NATO and from the painstaking declassification of Italian documents.

But a first response has already arrived. According to what is known, in a letter sent to the Rome prosecutors, their French counterparts have reopened a door that had appeared firmly closed. They announced that new documents would be arriving shortly.

 There is a crucial issue involving France. On that fateful June 27, 1980, Bonfietti says, “we now know for certain that the French aircraft carrier Foch was sailing in the Mediterranean.” That fact had long been denied.

Another piece of the puzzle: while vacationing in Corsica, Carabinieri General Nicolò Bozzo, Dalla Chiesa’s right-hand man, was certain he had seen fighter jets taking off from the Solenzara air base. That account, too, has long been denied.

Were the French that evening hunting for Moammar Gadhafi or another Libyan aircraft? It is possible. At that the time, Tripoli and Paris were effectively at war in Chad. This was also the theory pursued by Judge Rosario Priore, but without judicial cooperation from France, the investigation could not get very far.

 Then, following a bombshell revelation by former President Francesco Cossiga in 2008, made when he was near death, the Ustica investigation gained new momentum along the French trail. There were some significant new findings, including evidence concerning the Foch.

 Then, nothing.

 Eventually, the lack of progress forced prosecutors to give up and request that the case be closed. That request will now be abandoned.

 Everyone expects Wednesday’s hearing before the judge to proceed quickly and without procedural obstacles, allowing prosecutors to resume their full investigative powers and put France’s declared willingness to cooperate to the test.

 At the end of such an important day, Bonfietti was genuinely pleased.

“The government took action, and we are seeing the results. We asked for the case not to be closed, and that is what is happening. It is a major achievement,” she said.