Emmanuel Macron will meet the new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Sunday evening in Rome, announced the Elysée, a few hours after the entry into office of the most right-wing government in Italy since 1946. This meeting must take place in the center of the Italian capital and not in an official palace, a French source told AFP.
The first foreign leader to meet Meloni
The French head of state, who had not spoken on the subject since the appointment of Giorgia Meloni unlike the German chancellor, the American president and the representatives of the European institutions, will therefore be the first foreign leader to meet the new head of the Italian government.
Until the end, Paris had been very cautious about the possibility and even the advisability of such a tete-a-tete, the official reason for Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Rome being a speech on peace delivered on Sunday. at an international forum and an audience with Pope Francis scheduled for Monday morning. But the Italian political context, with the coming to power of the leader of the post-fascist party Fratelli d’Italia at the head of a coalition dominated by the extreme right, prevailed over these considerations.
Franco-Italian relations in question
During his previous papal audiences, in 2018 and 2021, President Macron had in fact each time had more or less formal talks with Italian leaders. Franco-Italian relations, in good shape as long as Mario Draghi ruled the Peninsula, risk going through a zone of turbulence with the eurosceptic and sovereignist Meloni.
A taste of these tensions took place even before his appointment, when the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Laurence Boone, warned in early October that France would be “very vigilant about respecting the values and rules of the ‘rule of law’ in Italy. “Unacceptable threat of interference”, immediately protested the one who has since become the first female Prime Minister in her country.
Emmanuel Macron tried to calm things down on Friday by ensuring that he was “completely ready to work with her”. And Giorgia Meloni has given pledges to her European partners by hammering home her attachment to NATO and her determination to support Ukraine, while appointing personalities they may deem reassuring to key positions in Foreign Affairs and Economy.