by Steve Scherer and Paolo Biondi

Italian lawmakers elected Sergio Mattarella, a constitutional court judge and veteran center-left politician, as president on Saturday, handing a welcome political victory to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Mattarella, speaking at his office in the Constitutional Court after the vote, said: "My first thoughts are of the difficulties and hopes of our citizens."

He later visited the site in Rome where German troops killed 335 Italians in World War Two, saying that Europe must unite to battle terrorism the same way allied nations banded together to defeat "Nazi hate, racism, anti-Semitism, and totalitarianism".

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Source: http://www.reuters.com/