He is the former leader of the far-right Italian Social Movement, the conservative National Alliance, and the center-right Future and Freedom party.

The name Gianfranco was chosen in remembrance of a cousin, who was killed when he was 20 years old by partisans soon after the liberation of Northern Italy on 25 April 1945.

He remained in the national secretariat of the MSI until January 1990, when at the next party congress in Rimini, Pino Rauti was elected secretary.

But in July 1991, after a tough electoral defeat in administrative and regional elections in Sicily, Fini returned to his role as party secretary.

[7] In the autumn of 1993, Fini ran for mayor of Rome, garnering enough votes to participate in a runoff election that resulted in the victory of Francesco Rutelli.

During the 1990s Fini gradually began to move the MSI away from its neo-fascist ideology to a more traditionally conservative political agenda.

After the House of Freedoms' 1994 victory, Fini said there would not and could not be any return to fascism and frequently disavowed AN supporters who used the fascist salute.

[9] Some MSI members (Pino Rauti, Erra, Staiti) dissented and seceded to form the new Tricolor Flame party.

In particular: At the end of January 2007, Berlusconi declared that Fini would be his only successor in case of unification of centre-right parties, provoking dissent from the Northern League and the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC).

At first, Fini reacted coldly, affirming that AN would not participate, judging the way the new party was born confused and superficial, and expressing open dissent against his ally of the "former coalition".

[10] Commenting on the homage to every victim of terrorism made by the President of the Republic, the former member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) Giorgio Napolitano, he announced "the end of the post-war period", of "the cleavage between the right and society", and of "overcoming minority status".

He also negatively judged the desire of the Berlusconi government to intervene with a decree in the case of Eluana Englaro[16] and supported the need to defend the secularism of the State, being then criticized by members of UDC and of his own party.

[17] In recent times he has become more and more vocally critical of the government platform, which he considers too biased towards the far-right federalist coalition party Lega Nord.

He founded the parliamentarian group "Futuro e libertà per l'Italia" (Future and Freedom for Italy) in hopes of establishing a centrist "third pole", similar to what Pier Ferdinando Casini had done with the Union of the Centre.

In the 2013 Italian general election, the FLI (Future and Freedom for Italy) received only 0.5% of the vote and thus was awarded no seats in the Chamber of Deputies, ending Fini's 30 year parliamentary career.

Fini has lately been accused of being incoherent by some theo-con members for holding socially conservative political positions while at the same time being separated and never married in Church.