Macron’s Meloni snub lays bare strain on France-Italy ties

Bloomberg

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni didn’t paper over her contempt for the French President this past week — and Emmanuel Macron made clear that the feeling was mutual.
The spat took place after Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz at the Ukrainian leader’s request for dinner at the presidential Elysée Palace. Meloni, who was not informed about the dinner ahead of time — or offered a seat at the table — characterised the meeting as “inappropriate,” prompting Macron to retort that France and Germany have a “special role” in supporting Ukraine.
Officials from both countries say the problem is that the leaders are fundamentally
incompatible.
Macron sees Meloni as an Italian equivalent of the French populist Marine Le Pen, who has spent years attacking his pro-market policies.
For Meloni, the French president is just the kind of arrogant elitist that she built her movement to bring down.
According to two people familiar with the dinner incident, such a failure of communication would not have happened
when Meloni’s predecessor Mario Draghi was in power.
Within Italy, the dinner incident has revealed the vulnerability of Meloni’s governing coalition, particularly around the war in Ukraine and the
government’s relations with France.
While Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has remained steadfast in its support for Ukraine, coalition parties the League and Forza Italia have in the past
allied themselves with Russia and Vladimir Putin, and have clashed hard with Macron.
To be sure, bilateral relations between Italy and France remain solid, with diplomats and defense officials collaborating closely on a daily basis.