The parties in France and Italy opposing Finland’s NATO membership are anti-NATO and anti-EU. Some have also been reported to have close ties with Russia and Vladimir Putin.
The French National Assembly ratified Finland’s membership on Tuesday. In Italy, the House of Representatives also approved Finland’s membership on Tuesday. The country’s senate will vote on the matter after the summer.
In France and Italy, some political groups have not been in favor of Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership. in France Marine Le Pen led by the far-right National League party voted no and the radical leftist Unsubordinated France voted against membership.
of the National Union Laurent Jacobelli said that the membership process appears to Russia as a signal of resistance. The party’s pro-Russia sentiment is no secret. Among other things, Marine Le Pen has hoped for a waiver of Russian sanctions, claiming that they are not useful in a war.
Left-wing Indomitable France Aurelien Saintoul called the overlapping of NATO and EU countries with the membership of Finland and Sweden a dangerous process. The party is openly anti-NATO.
Lega’s connections to Russia were on display
In Italy, in the vote of the House of Representatives, 398 voted for the membership of Finland and Sweden, 9 opposed and 20 abstained.
According to the Italian broadcasting company RAI, the opponents were representatives of the anti-EU and populist Alternativa party.
In Italy, other parties have also opposed the expansion of NATO. Leader of the right-wing conservative Lega Nord party Matteo Salvini has demanded that the membership applications of Finland and Sweden be transferred to the latter. He has also criticized the arms aid given to Ukraine by the West, saying that it is not the kind of peaceful solution that the West should strive for.
Salvini has appeared quite publicly Vladimir Putin as a supporter, wearing, for example, a Putin shirt when visiting Moscow.
Also the Italian governor who demanded suspension of Finland’s NATO application Massimiliano Fedriga is a member of the Lega party, although his opposition was based more on business rather than politics – the background is the shutdown of the Finnish company Wärtsilä’s factory in Trieste, Italy.