2024 - Right-wing top meeting - Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen team up

With a view to the European elections in 2024, Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen demonstrate unity at a large rally.
The head of the Italian Lega party and the leader of the Rassemblement National (RN) faction in France met in Pontida, northern Italy.
Salvini’s anti-migrant party is celebrating its traditional festival there.

“This year we are committed to the same fight, our freedoms, our peoples, our countries,” Le Pen shouted in front of thousands of Lega supporters. “We defend our traditions, our gastronomy, our identities, our landscapes (…) we defend our peoples from the inundation of migrants,” she added, referring to the thousands of refugees arriving this week on the Italian island of Lampedusa had arrived.

Legend:

Visiting Matteo Salvini in Pontida: Marine Le Pen.

KEYSTONE/Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP

Le Pen also spoke about her “Declaration of the Rights of Nations and Peoples” to protect herself from “excesses of power by supranational organizations or commercial structures,” which she had presented the day before in France.

Peter Vogeli, SRF Italy correspondent, writes about the day’s events: “Almost exactly ten years ago to the day, in October 2013, almost 600 people and over 60 children drowned in boat accidents in the Mediterranean. That was the moment when north of the Alps, in the rest of Europe, in Brussels and also in Switzerland, eyes finally opened. We haven’t really made much progress in solving the problem today. Italy could have done more. But Italy cannot solve the problem alone. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposals go in the right direction: stricter control of illegal migration and humanitarian corridors for legal migration. But are the EU member states willing and able to act now, 10 years later?

The second question of the day was: Will the Italian government hold? Matteo Salvini, minister in the Meloni government and at the same time her worst enemy, gave the answer himself at the major Lega event in Pontida, near Bergamo: It holds. But that’s just a snapshot. Because Salvini asks himself this question every day. He only cares about his power. There is always some kind of election campaign going on in Italy. But after a year in office, Meloni’s government is much more stable than many people gave it credit for.”