Italy's Meloni to host Macron in Rome amid reconciliation rumours
The Italian prime minister was to host a one-on-one meeting with the French president on Tuesday evening in what Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper called a "turning-point summit".
"Meloni reconciles with Macron," said Il Messaggero daily, describing the meeting as a "thaw".
It was Macron who proposed the visit, according to his team, "because it is his role to bring Europeans together and he is also keen to work with her".
The meeting comes just weeks after the tense relations between the pair were exposed at a summit of European leaders in Albania on May 16th.
Meloni was in Tirana but didn't attend a meeting including Macron, the leaders of Germany, Britain and Poland, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meloni said she didn't join them because she opposes the idea of sending European troops to Ukraine to enforce any potential peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.
Macron later said the Italian premier's behaviour was based on a "misunderstanding".
"The discussion we were having was a discussion to achieve a ceasefire," he said, adding that there was no mention of sending troops to Ukraine.
Unity of the West
During a joint press conference in Rome with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on May 17th, Meloni called on her European counterparts to "abandon selfishness" and focus on "the unity of the West".
There have been tensions between Paris and Rome since Meloni swept to power in October 2022, including an early spat over migration and another at the G7 summit in Italy last year over abortion rights.
But the European Union's second- and third-largest economies are facing similar challenges, as they both grapple with the war in Ukraine and US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs against the bloc.
Political commentators have noted that Macron and Meloni have strengths that could prove useful to one another, paving the way for a potential reconciliation.
Italy has less influence on the diplomatic stage than France, which has nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
But Meloni can rely on a privileged relationship with Trump and US Vice President JD Vance, both of whom have referred to her as a "friend" who shares their conservative values and hardline policies against migration.
On May 18th, Meloni hosted talks in Rome between Vance and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen – the first at such a high level since Trump announced punishing tariffs against the bloc.
During the meeting, Vance hailed Meloni's role as a "bridge-builder between Europe and the United States".
That may not have escaped Macron, for whom international diplomacy has become one of the only areas where he can still hope to exert influence before the end of his term in 2027.
As for Meloni, whose approval ratings are at over 45 percent after two and a half years in power, she too has an interest in reconciling with Macron, as frequent clashes with the French head of state risk undermining the international stature she has worked hard to project.
By AFP's Gildas Le Roux
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