Two prominent Italian intellectuals announced Monday they were returning their Legion of #Honor awards to #France to protest that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-#Sissi was given the prize despite his government's human rights #abuses. Corrado Augias, a longtime journalist for La Repubblica daily and onetime European Parliamentarian for #Italy’s center-left, returned his prize to the French Embassy on Monday. Giovanna Melandri, a former Italian culture minister and the president of Rome's Maxxi contemporary art museum, announced she would follow suit.

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