Like Madrid, Paris remained silent as post-fascist Giorgia Meloni was sworn in and officially became Prime Minister of Italy over the weekend.

Quite coldly, Emmanuel Macron had contented himself with saying on Friday that he was "ready to work" with the far-right leader but had specified that he would not meet her in Rome, where he is this Sunday at the invitation of the pope. François, if it was "useful".

But Olivier Véran, in his position as government spokesman, was responsible for warming the atmosphere.

“Nothing is excluded at the time I am speaking to you”, he repeated during the political program of CNEWS, Europe 1 and Les Echos: “He is going to the Vatican to meet the Pope (… ).

If he needs to meet the Prime Minister, it is up to him to decide, and if the conditions are not met, it will be for another time.

“Now that she is Prime Minister…”

Asked about the characterization of "post-fascist" about Giorgia Meloni, Olivier Véran also considered that she had herself "said a lot of things and [their] opposite".

His Fratelli d'Italia party was a “post-fascist movement, it was claimed by Mrs. Meloni when she was a candidate.

Now that she is Prime Minister, she is part of a coalition.

If ever his policy were to differ from a fascist policy, personally, I would necessarily be very satisfied,” he explained.



Giorgia Meloni, officially taking office on Sunday, and her party are the heirs of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party created after the Second World War from which she took over, at the foundation of Fratelli d'Italia at the end of 2012, the tricolor flame .

It still recognizes today that the dictator Benito Mussolini (1922-1945) had "accomplished a lot", without exonerating him from his "errors": the anti-Jewish laws and the start of the war.

She also affirms that in her party "there is no place for those nostalgic for fascism, nor for racism and anti-Semitism".

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