Francesca De Benedetti
(Re)-Collecting Europe: Journalism Residency 2019

Francesca De Benedetti was one of the journalists-in-residence in 2019. Against the backdrop of the UK’s departure from the EU, De Benedetti examined the social and cultural impact of Brexit on the civil society in the UK. At the beginning, the journalist stayed at the Goethe-Institut London for a week, before embarking on her journey through the UK.

Francesca De Benedetti is a 35-year-old Italian journalist with European background and international vocation. During her residency, she was especially interested in investigating the impact of Brexit on young people, given that most British millennials voted in favor of the EU and they are in danger of being notably affected by Brexit. “How is Brexit going to affect their lives? What are young people’s fears and hopes? Is the pro-European culture going to outlast Brexit?” the journalist wondered.

Francesca studied the EU policies and the European public opinion at Bologna University and at Sciences Po (Paris), also doing research for the European Journalism Observatory. As a journalist, she has been working for Italy’s leading newspaper La Repubblica since 2013: six years ago, Francesca won a journalistic competition called “Formenton fellowship”. Since then, she has been a staff reporter for the newspaper, working both for the digital branch (Repubblica.it, Repubblica TV) and for the newspaper itself (foreign news, business news, cultural magazine, weekly magazine). She has been a staff reporter for the foreign desk, covering European policies, international trade and tech in particular, paying attention to emerging issues such as Brexit, international trade agreements, EU youth unemployment, EU digital strategy, hacking and fake news, gender inequalities, and inequalities in general. In the last few months, the Rome-based journalist has covered Italian elections and politics for the UK newspaper “The Independent” and she continues writing for La Repubblica and its inserts such as the news weekly magazine “il Venerdì di Repubblica”.

The article that has been published in the context of the (Re)-Collecting Europe Residency you can read here:

Francesca de Benedetti: The young people betrayed by Brexit in the vote for Europe, La Repubblica 2019

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