Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni, a political family, two European partitions

by Michel Rose, Elizabeth Pineau and Angelo Amante

PARIS (Reuters) – Last year in an interview, a French minister dared to compare Giorgia Meloni and the head of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, a judgment which triggered an angry appeal from the Italian leader to Emmanuel Macron.

According to the account of two sources at Reuters, the French president took the incident seriously to the point of immediately sending an emissary to Rome in order to appease the anger of the one who has ruled Italy since the end of 2022.

This episode shows the lack of affinities between the two most prominent far-right elected officials on the European continent, with distinct political strategies.

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“It’s not because they are two strong, blonde women that they are identical,” an Italian official told Reuters. “Meloni’s message to his European counterparts has always been: ‘I am not the Italian Le Pen.’

Beyond egos, the differences between the two women will weigh on policies in the wake of June’s European elections, which could see Eurosceptic forces gain influence within the new European Commission, the Union’s executive.

Europe’s far-right parties currently sit in two distinct groups.

Giorgia Meloni’s camp is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (CRE) which also includes PiS, the former ruling party in Poland. The National Rally operates within the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, which includes Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the League of Italian Matteo Salvini, a member of the government coalition in Rome.

SULFUR REPUTATION

Polls and recent elections in Portugal show that the far right is riding a wave of discontent in Europe that could result in seat gains in June, fueling speculation about the possible formation of a single “supergroup” in Parliament from Strasbourg.

“On the evening of the election, we will know the balance of power, we will decide at that time,” RN MEP Jean-Lin Lacapelle told Reuters.

In front of the press in January, Georgia Meloni described as “interesting” the evolution of Marine Le Pen’s reasoning on Russia, fueling on both sides of the Alps the idea of ​​a rapprochement, the beginnings of an alliance.

European sources from both camps interviewed by Reuters reject this scenario, highlighting Georgia Meloni’s desire to increase her country’s influence in Europe by collaborating with the Union’s institutions.

A position which supposes keeping Marine Le Pen at bay.

Despite her efforts to “demonize” the RN, a party resulting from the National Front created by her father Jean-Marie, and her renunciation of leaving the European Union and the single currency, Marine Le Pen indeed enjoys a sulphurous reputation among the Brussels decision-makers and, above all, German conservatives.

Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s Party (EPP) whose polls predict will remain the main force in the next Parliament, made it clear to Giorgia Meloni that the presence of the RN would prevent any alliance with the CRE.

“Giorgia Meloni wants to be at the heart of the game in Europe, so her strategy is to move towards the ‘mainstream'”, explains a French diplomat.

A rapprochement between the PPE and CRE would put the bar to the right in comparison with the current “grand coalition” which includes the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

We should then expect a toughening of migration policy, on the climate, and more conservative positions on family and social issues. A French diplomat adds to this list a status quo in terms of European integration.

The exclusion of this coalition from the RN and other parties like the AfD would prevent the most extreme forces from weighing in on crucial issues like the Ukrainian issue.

This is the strategy of Giorgia Meloni, quicker to collaborate with European institutions than to work to weaken them.

KING MAKER

When she came to power, the Italian leader sought to reassure markets and capitals about her foreign and economic policy, favorable to businesses and trade, distinguishing herself from the more protectionist posture of Marine Le Pen. She provided unwavering support for Ukraine and stayed away from the anti-NATO views of her French colleague, whose support for Kyiv is more ambiguous.

The leader of the RN did not fail to criticize Giorgia Meloni when the latter accompanied the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, to Ukraine and to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

And to drive the point home last weekend in Rome during a campaign meeting around Matteo Salvini.

“Ms. Meloni, you owe the Italians the truth! Are you going to support a second term for Von der Leyen? I believe you will. Only Matteo Salvini will oppose it in Italy with the League,” wrote Marine Le Pen on the X network.

Political and ideological differences alone do not explain what separates Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen, two women from the same family of thought who have followed a similar trajectory of progressive normalization.

Giorgia Meloni knows that the weight of her party, Fratelli d’Italia, the most powerful in the CRE group, gives her the role of kingmaker for the next European Commission and the vote on future laws in Parliament.

According to several sources interviewed by Reuters, Giorgia Meloni has her sights set on an important economic portfolio in the next Commission.

A presence in his group of National Rally deputies, potentially more numerous than Italian elected officials, would necessarily reduce his influence.

“She’s a rival, she has no interest in letting the wolf enter the fold,” said Gilles Ivaldi, specialist in European far-right parties at Sciences Po.

Another sign that political maneuvering can prevail over ideas, Giorgia Meloni has approached Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who will join the CRE after the elections despite his pro-Russian positions, according to sources.

Although they have never been close, Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen know each other and even participated in television shows together in Italy before the rise of the Roman leader.

In 2014, Fratelli d’Italia made contact with the Le Pen camp to form an alliance after the elections, an Italian source said.

“There was a lot of pressure within our party to reach an agreement with Le Pen, but then she decided to side with Salvini, who was at the time the rising star of the Italian right,” says an Italian diplomat.

Ten years later, the roles have been reversed, and it is the RN which until recently seemed to be making appeals to Meloni, with sources at the RN privately believing that a merger of the groups would make sense, with both camps sharing , according to them, many convictions.

WITH RECOVERY

But Giorgia Meloni made a radically different choice by allying herself with Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest party, whose head of the European list is none other than Marine Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal.

Questioned by Reuters, the European deputy RN Jean-Paul Garraud mocked this rallying to a CRE group “favorable to the enlargement of the EU to the Balkans and to Ukraine, to the migration pact and to the distribution of migrants throughout Europe , the strengthening of European defense under the dependence of NATO, free trade treaties. These points to which, at the RN, we have always firmly opposed.”

Some observers were surprised by this rapprochement with a French party with ideas often more radical than those of Marine Le Pen. An RN deputy speaks of “family choice” to the extent that Marion Maréchal’s husband, Vicenzo Sofo, is an Italian MEP, a member of Meloni’s party.

Nicolas Bay, the only Reconquest MEP, told Reuters that he had a “grand oral” in front of members of the CRE group, under the leadership of Italian MP Nicola Procaccini. A rapprochement in the wake of the discreet meeting, in Rome at the beginning of 2022, between Marion Maréchal, Vincenzo Sofo, Nicolas Bay and Giorgia Meloni, who would come to power shortly after.

“At the CRE we are in a position to shift the center of gravity. This is a real prospect, while the RN is mired in marginality,” Nicolas Bay, candidate for re-election in a vote which requires collecting 5% of the votes to send elected officials to Strasbourg.

The RN, however, wants to believe in project-by-project agreements. For Jean-Lin Lacapelle, synergies are possible in Parliament. “The main thing is to have a majority of ideas, of projects,” he says. “We can vote tomorrow with the CRE group, with the non-registered, with the PPE group, why not.”

Giorgia Meloni’s posture could in any case put Marine Le Pen in the paradoxical situation of being victorious on June 9 in France while being condemned to isolation and powerlessness in Brussels.

Cohabitation with the AfD within the ID group is another thorn in the side of the French leader, who recently denounced an alleged German project of “remigration” of non-European immigrants to their country of origin.

The AfD is a “burden” for the RN, a “partner which is becoming really annoying”, believes Gilles Ivaldi.

If the proximity of the AfD tarnishes the image of Marine Le Pen, a large victory in France – where polls give the RN 12 points ahead of the Renaissance list of Emmanuel Macron’s camp – will nevertheless be analyzed through the national prism.

“This would set the tone for the 2027 presidential election and could make Le Pen the possible next French president,” writes the European Council on International Relations, a pan-European think tank, in a note.

(Reporting by Michel Rose and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, with Angelo Amante and Crispian Balmer in Rome, editing by Kate Entringer)