The Italian far-right party "League" of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini announced that he is joining the group created by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán "Patriots for Europe", ANSA reported, quoted by BTA.
"After a long period of work, the great group of "Patriots", which will be decisive in changing the future of Europe, today begins to exist in Brussels," Salvini wrote on social networks.
"League" was part of "Identity and Democracy" in the ninth composition of the European Parliament together with Marine Le Pen's party "National Assembly". But earlier today, Orban's spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, announced that Le Pen was joining Orban's group.
Among the first to join was the Austrian Freedom Party. On Friday, Orbán's group was joined by the Spanish far-right "Vox" of Santiago Abascal, who was a longtime ally of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in her European Conservatives and Reformists group.
Salvini also commented on the outcome of the elections in France. He recalled that "the gang assembled by Macron against Le Pen" won the vote but did not have the number of MPs to govern and Le Pen won 143 MPs, the most in her party's history so far. Salvini added that between the first and second rounds of the election, support for Le Pen jumped from 33 to 37 percent. The Italian leader added that the "all against one" has reduced the number of seats Le Pen and Jordan Bardela's party was expected to win in parliament, but has not reduced support for it.
He described the celebrations in the streets of France after the loss of Le Pen's party as "a celebration by communists, pro-Islamists, anti-Semites and hooligans who have attacked police with stones in a number of countries".