Populists and the far-right in Italy and France are mounting an assault on President Emmanuel Macron, hoping to unsettle his centrist agenda before European Parliament elections in May.
Italy’s two deputy prime ministers, Matteo Salvini of the right-wing League, and Luigi Di Maio of the populist, anti-establishment 5-Star movement, have sought to rile Macron on a host of inflammatory issues.
Salvini and Di Maio appear to believe that in attacking Macron, their core voters in Italy will be motivated. Macron has been upfront in framing the European election as a battle between anti-immigrant nationalists and pro-EU “progressives” like himself.
In the ballot, he hopes to carry the centre and, with allies, build the largest bloc in the European parliament. The far-right and populists believe they may win a third or more of the vote.
With support for France’s “Yellow Vests” and suggestions Macron is
driving neo-colonialism in Africa, the Italian duo have ignored the convention of not interfering in another country’s politics.
The rise in tension shows how divisive the May 23-26 election is set to be.
Macron and his ministers have mostly claimed the high ground. But on Tuesday, angered by Di Maio’s accusations that Paris is worsening poverty in Africa and encouraging migration to Europe, the French foreign ministry called in Italy’s ambassador.
In the National Assembly, Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau said Salvini was playing to a domestic audience and would have no impact in France. “We’re not going to be drawn into a stupidity contest,” she said.
While Salvini has long been a critic of Macron, the assault by Di Maio is relatively new and a sign of the problems his movement is having domestically. 5-Star is seeking new alliances within the EU and sees France’s “Yellow Vests”, who have said they will run candidates in the election, as a potential ally.
Macron faces a similar assault at home from Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National, who hopes to ally her party with Salvini’s in the European Parliament.
Le Pen, defeated by Macron in 2017, launched a campaign this month to turn the French against a new Franco-German treaty of unity and commitment to Europe.
She claimed the treaty would involve France surrendering territory to Germany in the Alsace and Lorraine border regions, that French citizens there would have to learn German, and that Macron was considering sharing France’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council with Germany.
The Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle treaty signed on Tuesday included none of those things, and the Elysee Palace issued a firm rebuttal of Le Pen’s claims.
Macron is spending the next two months conducting a nationwide debate to “listen” to French voters.
Where Le Pen and Salvini may fall down, according to Guillaume Liegey, a pollster who worked on Macron’s 2017 campaign, is if they focus too heavily on immigration.
In an article in the Guardian this week, Liegey said polling by his group showed that mass migration was not the main concern of voters, who ultimately want to feel a sense of security and that they are being listened to.
Macron’s “grand debate” may enable him to show he is listening to voters’ concerns. There are already signs his popularity ratings, once barely above 20%, have started to climb again, although only by a few points. Reuters