Marine Le Pen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have long had a distant, even hostile, relationship, but are now beginning to observe and make overtures toward each other. As the campaign for the European elections in June has approached – and with speculation growing about the future balance of power in the European Parliament – the signs of a rapprochement between the two far-right leaders have begun to show in Paris and Rome.
On January 4, it was the Fratelli d'Italia party leader who made the first move at her annual press conference, a major programmatic moment where she set out her agenda for the coming 12 months. When responding to a question about possible post-election alliances with the Rassemblement National (RN) or the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Meloni made a distinction between the two far-right parties. Immediately dismissing the AfD, from which she said she was separated by "insurmountable distances" due to its pro-Russian stance, she praised Le Pen's "interesting reasoning" on the subject, clearly convinced by the turn away from the Kremlin.
Meloni's remarks did not go unnoticed by Le Pen's supporters. Before Christmas, Jean-Paul Garraud, the head of the RN delegation to the European Parliament, had opened up the possibility of convergences in Il Foglio, the Italian newspaper associated with the liberal right: "It is clear that Meloni is extraordinarily similar to what we are and what Le Pen represents," said the former magistrate, claiming that the two leaders were inspired by each other.
On January 15, on the sidelines of a press conference by RN chairman Jordan Bardella, Le Pen welcomed the possibility of opening up a discussion channel with Meloni, advocating for a joint group with "the Italians and Fidesz" – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's party. This possibility has not been taken very seriously within the current group containing the RN's MEPs, Identity and Democracy (ID), where such a coalition has been considered unrealistic. It has even been deemed undesirable by a prominent RN MEP who finds Meloni to be "too liberal and reactionary," and by the most pro-Russian RN MEPs, who have been put off by her Atlanticism.
However, Le Pen's tone was remarkably different from the one she used in September 2023, when the number of makeshift boats arriving on the coast of Lampedusa was increasing, prompting Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to travel to the island together. At the time, the leader of the French far-right had mocked, in front of the press, "those people who call themselves patriots and [then] call on the European Union. We clearly feel closer to Matteo Salvini's vision than to Ms. Meloni's, even if we prefer Ms. Meloni to her predecessors. One is much closer to our vision than the other."
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