When Aboubakar Soumahoro was a teenager in his native Ivory Coast, he used to clean shoes and dream of going to Italy, filling a scrapbook with pictures of Italian fashion designs that he cut out of magazines.
"One thing I will try to do is make sure that no one ends up living in the streets like me. People need to be treated as human beings regardless of what passport they have," he said, speaking ahead of the Oct. 13 opening of parliament.
"I do not want to represent just one part of society. I want to make sure that everyone, both the dispossessed and those who struggle to make ends meet, can recognise themselves in what we do," he said.Soumahoro's election is the culmination of an astonishing personal journey, that included picking crops in the fields, laying bricks, working at a gas station, studying sociology at Naples University and writing a book: "Humanity in Revolt".
He says the right-wing parties that are about to take power have politicised the migrant issue for electoral gain.
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