The left rejoices. It is cold, dressed in caution, on the right. The French vote takes Italian politics by surprise, which finds itself commenting off the cuff on results that since the first exit polls released by the Belgian media – a spiteful tradition among neighbors – delivered, yes, uncertainty due to the lack of an absolute majority, but that in no way would have handed the palm of the winners to Melenchon and Macron. Between resistance and desistance: the Italian left plays with words. “An extraordinary result for the united left and a beautiful response of participation. The right can be beaten”, exults the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein.
“The great participation of the French people rewards the popular and progressive proposal of those who have never had doubts about peace, the defense of social rights and the protection of the most fragile”, he emphasizes Joseph Conte reading “a sign of democratic push that today speaks to the whole of Europe”. “The New Popular Front wins and saves the Republic from the assault of the extreme right”, it adds Nicholas Fratoianni who sees in the vote across the Alps a clear “indication of hope” for our country. “Fear has won. Macron’s gamble has proven to be a winning one”, says Filippo Sensi in a more pragmatic way, who praises “the sanitary cordon against the worst of the European right” and then, caustically, the Democratic senator comments: “Someone at Palazzo Chigi is toasting”.
With a thinly veiled reference to the friction between the government allies both internally and in Europe. “And I believe you”, Claudio Borghi plays along, responding to Sensi with a smiling emoticon. The Lega Nord member has long been the only one in the center-right to intervene immediately on the French vote, calling it a “masterpiece unlike Macron” that leaves France “to a pile dominated by the left”. Viaticum for a victorious ride of Le Pen in the next presidential elections, he predicts. For the immediate future, however, “we await with open arms Rn among the Patriots” to build “finally the real alternative to this rotten EU”. But if Borghi appears particularly talkative, in the center-right it is more difficult to register immediate comments, perhaps while waiting to have a clearer picture. The leader of Noi Moderati, Maurizio Lupi, breaks the deadlock by giving a majority reading of the French vote. “The high turnout is a very positive fact,” he observes, commenting on the shocking turnout record when compared to the (negative) one recorded in Italy just under a month ago. “But the weakness of political proposals and alliances built not on a political project, but on the principle of ‘all against one’ – he warns – leads to ungovernability and now France will experience it too.” “It therefore seems that the gauche will carry out austerity,” Lega MP Alberto Bagnai shares his thoughts, who – ironically – does not see the vote as “a terrible scenario: France is thirteen years behind us, and will catch up. When it has caught up, it will get rid of the butcher in the red apron,” adding an Italian-French political equation: “Hollande: France = Napolitano: Italy.” “The left wins if there is no center-right with a strong center,” warns in a very Italian way the group leader of FI in the Chamber Paolo Barelli.