“Maybe they thought they were going to take me off the face of this earth for good, but I am sorry, I will continue even stronger than before, I will be back on the streets,” the 48-year-old told Tg1 on Italian TV.

“There are so many citizens who need these presences in local areas across Italy.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the outspoken anti-drugs campaigner met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who pledged that she will join him to tour Italy’s often troubled and crime- and drug-hit peripheries.

“[The prime minister] has promised that she will make a tour in the peripheries, when and how I do not know, but she has promised that she will come.

“I have seen her very convinced and I believe that the citizens of these territories need to see a State of proximity,” Coluccia said.

It was shortly after his meeting with the PM, that the priest was attacked, during a march against organised crime in Tor Bella Monaca, in Rome.

Anti-mafia priest Father Antonio Coluccia met with PM Meloni on Tuesday and received a commitment from her that she will join him to tour some of Italy’s crime- and drug-hit peripheries. Not long after, at a protest rally he attended, the priest was attacked by a man on a motor-scooter, but luckily he emerged unscathed. (Photo: ANSA)

A man, believed to be a Belarusian national linked to drug rackets, aimed his scooter at the activist priest, but Coluccia’s police escort managed to bundle the cleric out of the way and take the brunt of the hit himself.

Both the policeman and the attacker ended up in hospital, the assailant apparently also carrying a cleaver and a hammer in his backpack.

The man has been charged with attempted murder.

Speaking about the scooter attack on Tg1, Coluccia said the incident shook him up.

“I was scared because I saw this scooter coming at me and when it accelerated I thought it was going to hit me.

“I have to thank the (police) escort who moved me and saved me,” he said.

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi reportedly phoned Coluccia expressing his solidarity and full support.

The minister also spoke to police chief Vittorio Pisani to ascertain what happened and the health conditions of the officer hospitalised with various injuries.

Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said he also telephoned the priest.

“I called him to express the closeness of all of Rome and wish a speedy recovery to the injured escort agent.

“Violence and mafias must be fought by every means,” he said.

League leader and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also offered words of encouragement to “a man of the Church who fights all types of drugs to save girls and boys”.

“Good luck [also] to the officer involved, all my contempt for the infamous wounded criminal.”

ANSA