Italian President Sergio Mattarella visits Paris today for lunch and talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron as the French leader seeks to smooth ties with the Italian gov't after months of fraught relations. While Matterella is a political independent and the office of the presidency is largely ceremonial, Macron is seen as keen to hold positive talks with the Italian head of state in an effort to improve the mood between Macron's gov't and that of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.

• Earlier, Politico reported that Macron was concerned that the popularity of Meloni's national conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) party could legitimise the far-right National Rally of Macron's adversary Marine Le Pen ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections.
• Franco-Italian relations remain poor due to Meloni's hard line on illegal migration that saw Italian authorities direct a migrant rescue vessel to France in Nov 2022, and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani cancel a visit to Paris after French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the Italian gov't is "incapable" of managing migration.
• Meloni's FdI sits within the eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the EP, but there has been speculation that the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) group could seek to work with the FdI (expected to win a plurality of Italy's EP seats in 2024). This could reduce the influence of the liberal Renew Europe group in which Macron's Renaissance party sits.