lWhen Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni use the word “immigration”, they are not talking about the same thing. It would be a mistake to take the two far-right leaders as interpreters of the same discourse. For the President of the Italian Council, immigration is a phenomenon of external human geography that must be controlled and its regulation offers opportunities in terms of foreign policy.
On the other hand, when the term is used by the leaders of the National Group [RN]evokes something entirely different. We are no longer talking about a quantifiable phenomenon. Rather, we are summoning, through unspoken words, an anxious imagination that concerns itself less with real flows than with internal identity tensions and malaises, products of the long colonial and migratory history that has shaped contemporary French society.
So it is a question of something else. In this confused but effective discourse, the notion of immigration serves as a link to a set of national concerns, identifying Islamist terrorism, suburban riots, social fraud, crime and, since October 7, 2023, anti-Semitism, in the figure of the imaginary migrant. In reality, the RN’s discourse is directed at citizens belonging to minorities, in particular those of the Muslim faith.
In Italy, in Giorgia Meloni’s speech, this subtext does not exist. The issue of immigration does not serve to camouflage a discourse on an internal reality that she leaves in the hands of her allies in the League and on the most right-wing margins of the political spectrum. It designates an external phenomenon.
Vector of diplomatic action
In the speeches of the president of the council, the migrant is a victim “desperate” whose “right not to emigrate” It was ignored due to shortcomings in economic development attributable to policies considered predatory from external powers. So the target is France. It is especially a victim of “human traffickers” to fight by taking advantage of Italian know-how in the fight against the mafia.
From then on, Rome’s migration policy became a vector of diplomatic action. From the beginning of her mandate, Giorgia Meloni has laid the foundations for a discourse that advocates renewed cooperation with African states. After having organised an Italy-Africa summit in Rome in January, she proposes a discourse according to which Italy is the bearer of a “equal to equal”, basis for cooperation on migration issues with States of departure and transit.
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