Macron Is Salvini's Best Friend Really
The French have started meddling on the Fiat-Renault deal. Despite Macron’s pro-European dreams, he usually reverts to the national interest.
In some ways, Salvini and Macron are fellow travelers.
Photographer: MARCO BERTORELLO/AFPEmmanuel Macron has marked out Matteo Salvini as his arch-nemesis in the fight against Europe’s far right. But his own actions are playing right into the hands of the most powerful person in Italian politics.
The French president is preaching a pan-European agenda abroad, as he tries to win around Germany and other countries to his dreams for a more closely tied euro zone and EU. But back home, on subjects ranging from immigration to industrial policy, he has shown a stubborn penchant for nationalist and uncooperative solutions. These double-standards don’t just expose him to accusations of hypocrisy, they also end up strengthening forces like Salvini who oppose greater European integration.