Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini announced on Monday that his League party is joining Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s new Patriots for Europe group at the EU level.
Previously, the League was part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) caucus, which included Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), among others. Later on Monday, Orban’s spokesperson, Zoltan Kovacs, announced on X that RN had also joined the Patriots group. Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), another former ID member, was one of the first parties to join the new group.
On Friday, Spain’s ultraconservative party Vox declared it was leaving Premier Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) caucus to join the Patriots for Europe group.
“After a long period of work, the big group of Patriots, which will be decisive in changing the future of this Europe, comes to life in Brussels today,” Salvini shared on social media.
Salvini also commented on the aftermath of the second round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections, where RN fell to third place due to tactical voting after leading in the first round. The leftwing New Popular Front emerged first, while President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together alliance secured second place.
“The ‘everyone against Le Pen’ coalition assembled by Macron won the elections but lacks the numbers to govern,” Salvini stated. “Nevertheless, 143 RN MPs will go to parliament in Paris, the highest number in history, with an increase in votes from 33 to 37% between the first and second rounds.
“The ‘all against one’ strategy reduced the number of seats but not the level of support for Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, to whom I send a big hug. There were celebrations in the streets by communists, pro-Islamists, and anti-Semites, hooligans who attacked the police with stones in several cities, causing chaos in parliament.”
