Luigi Di Maio, the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), has met a senior figure from the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement – a meeting likely to increase tensions between Italy and France. Di Maio and Alessandro Di Battista, a prominent M5S member, met Christophe Chalençon, as well as candidates the protest movement has put forward for the European elections in May, on the outskirts of Paris on Tuesday. Posting a photo of the group on Facebook, Di Maio described it as a “beautiful” meeting.

“The wind of change has crossed the Alps. I repeat. The wind of change has crossed the Alps,” he wrote. Di Maio had previously expressed his admiration for the gilets jaunes, who have been holding at times violent anti-government protests each week across France for the past few months. He urged the movement not to “give up” and said the demonstrations reminded him of the spirit that gave birth to the M5S in 2009. On Tuesday he said the two groups shared “many common positions and values that focus on the battles for citizens, social rights, direct democracy and the environment”.

Chalençon said while both sides “practically agree on everything”, there was no talk yet about whether they would form an alliance for the elections to the European parliament. Italian media reported that Ingrid Levavasseur, who heads the gilets jaunes’ list of 10 candidates for the elections, would meet M5S officials again in Rome next week. The meeting follows a series of verbal attacks from Di Maio and his co-deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, on the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in recent weeks and is also seen as an additional tactic by M5S to regain some of the popularity lost to Salvini’s far-right League since the coalition government came to power last June.(theguardian)…[+]