French Secretary of State for European Affairs Laurence Boone had insisted on the Polish and Hungarian precedents.
Statements by a French minister who reiterated that Paris would be “very vigilant” regarding respect for the rule of law in Italy provoked the ire of likely future Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni this Friday, who denounced an “unacceptable threat”.
In an interview with the daily La Repubblica published this Friday, when asked how Paris will work with the next Italian government, European Affairs Minister Laurence Boone replied: “We will be very vigilant and respect the values and rules of the rule of law “.
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“The EU has already shown its vigilance towards other countries such as Hungary and Poland,” she adds. Those comments, echoing concerns already voiced by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, provoked the ire of Giorgia Meloni, whose post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party won the Sept. 25 general election.
The future prime minister of the eurozone’s third economy, whose government is due to take office at the end of October, denounced “an unacceptable threat of interference against a sovereign member state of the European Union” on Facebook.
With these statements, the French minister is responding “to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s mistake,” she adds. On September 26, the day after Giorgia Meloni’s victory, Elisabeth Borne warned that France would “be careful” to “respect” human rights and women’s right to abortion.
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“I am confident that the French government will immediately deny these statements,” says Giorgia Meloni. “The era of governments led by the PD (Democratic Party, main left party, editor’s note) seeking protection abroad is over, I think everyone knows that, both in Italy and abroad,” closes them.
Giorgia Meloni’s coalition has an absolute majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and civil rights activists fear a significant decline in civil rights from abortion to same-sex marriage if parties come to power defending “family and traditional values” .
“Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby! Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology! Yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death!” Giorgia Meloni gave a boost during a speech in Spain in June. The fears that a government led by Giorgia Meloni could violate fundamental EU principles are probably “exaggerated”, according to AFP before the elections, according to Mabel Berezin, a sociologist at Cornell University in the United States.