With Meloni, Macron promises to work with “dialogue and ambition” – 20 Minutes

A first meeting at the top. Emmanuel Macron indeed spoke with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Sunday evening in Rome. The French head of state is the first foreign leader to meet the new president of the Italian council, who took office on Sunday. Emmanuel Macron promised to work with Giorgia Meloni with “dialogue and ambition”, a few minutes after his first meeting with the new Italian Prime Minister in Rome. Barely took office, the new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her debut on the international stage on Sunday evening by meeting French President Emmanuel Macron in Rome, during his first tete-a-tete with a foreign leader. Until the end, the Elysée maintained uncertainty about this interview with Mr. Macron, who was held discreetly and away from the cameras in the center of the Italian capital for a little over a year. hour. “As Europeans, in neighboring countries, as friendly peoples, with Italy we must continue all the work started. Succeeding together, with dialogue and ambition, we owe it to our youth and our peoples, ”tweeted the French president with a photo alongside Ms. Meloni, after thanking outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Unlike the German chancellor, the American president and the representatives of the European institutions, the French head of state had not spoken on the subject since the appointment of Giorgia Meloni, the first woman to lead the third economy in the euro zone. ‘Fully ready to work with her’ Emmanuel Macron’s visit is dedicated to an international peace forum, where he delivered a speech on Sunday, and an audience with Pope Francis scheduled for Monday morning. But he could not circumvent the Italian political context, with the coming to power of the post-fascist leader at the head of a coalition dominated by the far right. 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. But Emmanuel Macron had assured Friday to be “completely ready to work with her”. Giorgia Meloni, officially taking office on Sunday, and her party are the heirs of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party created after the Second World War whose it took over, at the foundation of Fratelli d’Italia at the end of 2012, the tricolor flame. It still recognizes today that the dictator Benito Mussolini (1922-1945) had “accomplished a lot”, without exonerating him from his “errors”: the anti-Jewish laws and the start of the war. She also affirms that in her party “there is no place for those nostalgic for fascism, nor for racism and anti-Semitism”.