Bannon made the remarks in France on the heels of a trip to Italy, where he lent his support to far-right parties who made significant gains during parliamentary elections earlier this month. On Saturday, thousands of people marched through the streets of Florence to remember a Senegalese migrant and street vendor who was shot to death by an Italian man just one day after the election. The killing came less than a month after a neo-Nazi wounded six migrants in a shooting spree in central Italy. At the Vatican, Pope Francis warned that the politics of fear was leading to anti-immigrant violence in Italy.

Pope Francis: “Our time experiences great fear as it faces the vast dimensions of globalization. And fear often turns against people who are foreign, different, poor, as if they were enemies. There are countries where development plans are made, dictated by the fight against these people.”