In an extraordinary public EU feud, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and
his coalition partner have thrown their support behind France’s Yellow Vest
movement, while Salvini also accused President Emmanuel Macron of being against
his people.
“I support honest citizens who protest against a governing
president [who is] against his people,” said the Italian deputy prime minister.
However, the leader of the Northern League added that he
“firmly” condemns the recent violence that has marred the protests.
Vice-President of the Council of Ministers of Italy Luigi Di
Maio, who is the leader of the Five-Star Movement (M5S), urged the
demonstrators on his party’s blog “not to weaken.”
Di Maio said that
politics, in both France and Italy, “has become deaf to the needs of citizens
who have been kept out of the most important decisions affecting the people.”
The cry that rises strongly from the French squares is
ultimately one of ‘let us participate!’
Macron and Salvini have a well-documented rivalry and history of
public name-calling. Most recently, in December, Salvini mocked the French
president as a “lab mouse elected to keep the elitist political system in
place.”
The pair have often locked heads over immigration policy during
the Mediterranean migrant crisis. In typical fashion the disagreement descended
into a war of words, with Salvini calling Macron and “international
embarrassment” last October after policemen were spotted dropping migrants off
in an Italian forest on the countries shared border.
Reprinted from RT News.
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