migrants
© Antonio Parrinello / ReutersMigrants wait on the dock in the Sicilian harbour of Augusta, August 25, 2015
An Italian politician running for president of wealthy Lombardy province triggered an avalanche of accusations over an interview in which he claimed the white race was in danger due to migration flows.

Speaking to local Radio Padania on Monday, Attilio Fontana of the right-wing, nationalist Northern League (Lega Nord) party alleged migrants are threatening the very existence of the white race, making his opponents bicker over the remark.

"We cannot [accept all asylum seekers] because we won't all fit, so we have to make choices,"he said, as cited by La Repubblica newspaper, adding that Italy must decide "if our ethnicity, if our white race, if our society, should continue to exist or if it should be wiped out."

Attempting to justify his claim, Fontana said that being unwilling to take in all arrivals "isn't a question of being xenophobic or racist, but a question of being logical or rational."

Fontana, who previously served as a mayor of the town of Induno Olona, and later a mayor of the city of Varese is running for region's president during the Lombardy election scheduled to take place on March 4, the same day as Italy's general elections which sees Matteo Salvini, the leader of Northern League, as one of the candidates for the country's premiership.

Salvini's party is participating in elections in a center-right alliance with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and the far-right Brothers of Italy.

On Monday, Salvini said his party sitting in the government will "regulate every Islamic presence in the country," Italy's ANSA news agency reports. Though he avoided siding with Fontana's remarks, the Northern League leader took aim at Muslims, saying there is an "invasion taking place."

Adding that "skin color has nothing to do with it," Salvini claimed that "there is a very real danger that centuries of [Italian] history risk disappearing if the Islamization - so far underestimated - takes over."

Fontana sought to play down the "white race" remarks later on Monday. While on the campaign event in northern Italy, he put them down to a "slip of the tongue," insisting he simply wanted Italy to revise its immigration policy in order to safeguard "our history and our society."