At the G7 summit, a tense coexistence between Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron

Without any side comments, a cold hand kiss at dinner, and a little barbs, the G7 summit, organized at a hotel in Borgo Egnazia, in Puglia, Italy, was the scene of a tense cohabitation between Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron. The Trans-Alpine Press had a blast in one of these “tensions”or even them “Confrontation”This was a few days after the European elections that took place on June 9.

After her electoral victory, the President of the Italian Council, seeking an alliance with Marine Le Pen, welcomed in Brussels, without warmth, on Thursday, June 13, the French President, the main loser in the last elections, along with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. On the first day of the summit, the far-right leader was more cheerful with US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Friday, she even went to pick up Pope Francis in an electric cart when he descended from the helicopter, the first head of the Catholic Church to be invited to a G7 summit. Then she received, with a smile on her face, the far-right Argentine President Javier Miley, among other guests from the southern countries that the G7 is trying to win over.

Nothing like that with Emmanuel Macron. No direct meeting was held between the two leaders, who separately increased the number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the working sessions. millimeter. Thus, Schulz and Macron saw the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, competing for a second term, but without their Italian host. Between the German Social Democrats and the French centrists, it was a matter of preparing, secretly, to reappoint the conservative candidate without stealing from other European capitals, before the dinner of the twenty-seven in Brussels on Monday.

The black look

Pictures don't deceive. When Emmanuel Macron arrived at the dinner, held on Thursday at Bari Castle in Swabia, Giorgia Meloni's dark gaze highlighted the tensions with the French president, contrasting with the long embrace that the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, gave to his father. His French counterpart. In question is Mr. Macron's response to a question from an Italian journalist about the disappearance, which Italy desires, for the explicit reference to the right to abortion in the draft final statement of the summit. “I'm sorry [cette absence]But I'm [la] Respect it, because it was the sovereign choice of your people.”, The Head of State responded, recalling that France included freedom of access to voluntary termination of pregnancy in its constitution: “We don't have the same options.”

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