Macron’s new headache: A successful Giorgia Meloni

PARIS — Giorgia Meloni seems to be giving Emmanuel Macron a new reason to worry: The legitimacy and success of the far-right Italian leader poses a threat to the French president’s party in the upcoming European elections.

Tensions between the two have surfaced repeatedly since Meloni took power last year, with migration a flashpoint. Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella, who has frequently smoothed over diplomatic spats with Paris, is set to meet Macron in the French capital for lunch on Wednesday, on a trip for the inauguration of an Italian exhibition at the Louvre.

But aside from the immigration disputes, Paris’ concern is the rise of Meloni on the European stage.

The prospect of the far-right Italian prime minister becoming the respectable face of the right in Europe presents a serious problem for Macron’s party ahead of the European elections in 2024.

As that campaign approaches, Macron’s ministers have attacked Meloni’s government in a bid to diminish their far-right opponents at home — Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, according to Italian officials and analysts. The aim is also to prevent the Italian far-right prime minister from being normalized as a respectable EU leader, they say. Meloni’s legitimacy could rub off on Le Pen, or so the thinking goes.

For Paris, it is now more crucial than ever that Meloni’s government is not successful, Meloni’s allies and analysts believe.

Macron and his allies “fear that the success of Giorgia Meloni could be contagious and further weaken the French government,” said Nicola Procaccini, an MEP with Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. The French government “is terrified by the idea that the center-right in France could unite and realize in France what happened in Italy,” he said.

It didn’t start so badly. Macron was the first leader to meet Meloni after her appointment as prime minister in October, amid concerns that the storied Franco-Italian bromance between Macron and Mario Draghi was coming to an end.

But relations then nosedived after the Italians directed a migrant rescue vessel to France. Since then, members of the French government and Macron’s party have repeatedly sniped at the Italians. In return, Meloni accused France of excluding Italy after she was not invited to a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Tensions resurfaced last month, when Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani canceled an official visit to Paris after France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Rome was “incapable” of managing migration, a snipe at the gap between populist promises of the far-right in the campaign stages and the reality when they’re in government.

All eyes on 2024

At the root of the friction, including on migration, is both internal politics and the upcoming European Parliament elections.

The normalization of Meloni could play a key role in the strategy of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) for the upcoming election. A possible alliance between the EPP and Meloni’s party would make European conservatives even more influential in Brussels, to the detriment of Macron’s centrist Renew Group. 

The President of Renew Europe at the European Parliament and head of Macron’s Renaissance party Stéphane Séjourné has also repeatedly attacked Meloni on files ranging from migration to LGBTQ+ rights, showing that Darmanin’s attacks on Meloni’s migration policy was more than just an isolated faux pas.

Marc Lazar, a historian at Sciences Po Paris, predicted that tension would increase in the run-up to the EU elections. “The Franco-Italian relationship will constantly oscillate between the need to work together on major files and the need for each of them to distance and differentiate from the other for domestic political reasons.”

For Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, president of the Institute of International Affairs in Rome, and former Italian permanent representative to the EU, “it is disturbing to Macron that Meloni could become a presentable, reasonable conservative leader, which could happen after the election.”

While Macron has not spoken out against the Italian government himself, the frequency of outbursts from his party members and ministers suggests the public commentary is authorized.

Meanwhile, careful not to be compared with Le Pen, Meloni has progressively abandoned the radically anti-French and anti-EU narrative she used before she won power. Despite some spats with Brussels, the Italian leader has earned taken a more pro-EU stance, sided with NATO over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and argued that her party is not flirting with Italy’s fascist past.

And even though the prospects for a love-in look slim, all is not lost for the Franco-Italian leaders’ relationship. Behind the political posturing, France and Italy have been working together on several issues, including industrial policy, which has traditionally been a bone of contention between the two countries. Cooperation is facilitated by a historic Italo-French treaty signed by Macron and Mattarella in 2021, which came into force in February this year.

“We have an ongoing dialogue bilaterally, we work together in Brussels,” said an Italian official who was not authorized to speak publicly. “Although it is clear that we then have different positions [on migrants] because we are a first-entry country and they are a recipient country for secondary movements,” he added.

“The migration issue is an irritant, but it is not a crisis between the President and Giorgia Meloni,” agreed a French diplomat not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Signs of a temporary détente emerged last month when French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna travelled to Rome. Following a meeting with Macron on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan, Meloni said her French visit could still take place by the summer.  

Mattarella, whose portfolio as president includes oversight of international alliances, has a record of helping smooth over tensions with Paris. He helped reset relations between the Conte government and Macron in 2019 with a visit to the French capital, and then again in a call with Macron last November at the height of the migrant boat dispute.

“The personal relationship between Macron and Mattarella is nearly as good as the one between Draghi and Macron,” said Lazar. “But this doesn’t change the fact that the parties of Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni are totally competing for next year’s European election.”

Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting.