(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 2 - French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned against the growth of "nationalists" at the June European elections but excepted Premier Giorgia Meloni from their ranks telling The Economist that she had a "European approach" and noting that she had "supported the asylum and migration pact".
    Of the other nationalist parties, Macron said "they're all pro-Brexit in disguise" and were trying to "take Europe hostage with the same false discourse".
    Meloni is chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which includes Spain's Vox, Poland's Law and Justice, Eric Zemmour's French Reconquete (Reconquest), the Sweden Democrats, and the Finns Party, a group which is led by Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and is soon set to see the arrival of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz too.
    The ECR was founded by former British Prime Minister, now foreign minister, David Cameron in 2014.
    The Tories left it after Brexit in 2016.
    Meloni has followed a domestic nationalist agenda but has cleaved to pro-EU and pro-NATO lines, especially regarding the war in Ukraine.
    The Italian PM says the ECR is hoping for a strong showing in the June 8-9 European Parliament poll to upset the centre-right-centre-left-liberal coalition that has ruled the EP for a decade or more.
    Meloni's domestic ally the League, led by Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, is in another European hard right and nationalist group, Identity and Democracy (ID), along with Alternative for Germany (AdF) and Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) of France, which is currently polling well ahead of Macron's Renaissance party amid speculation that she may succeed him as French president in the next French presidential elections.
    In the Economist interview, Macrosn also said that Western ground troops in Ukraine cannot be ruled out if Moscow breaks through the Ukrainian front lines and Kyiv makes a formal request for NATO boots on the ground, spurring a sharp response from Salvini who said not one Italian soldier will ever die in the French president's name.
    "Never one Italian soldier to die in Macron's name, that's what I think" Salvini said on social media about the Economist interview, in which Macron reiterated a suggestion on NATO troops in the Ukraine war he has made on several occasions in the past, prompting the Kremlin to say the call was "part of his weekly cycle".
    MEP Sandro Gozi, secretary general of the European Democratic Party and member of Macron's Renaissance party's Team Europe for the upcoming European elections, said that "the first immediate response to the French president's words did not come from the official spokesperson of the Russian foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, but from the real Kremlin spokesman in Europe, Matteo Salvini." Gozi, a former bigwig in the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said "it's not actually a surprise, because Salvini has always been very clear on Putin and the Ukraine war.
    "No strategic ambiguity: he has chosen what side to be on, that of Putin and Russia obviously"," said Gozi, posting a famous photo of Salvini in Red Square wearing a t-shirt with Putin's face on it.
    Salvini has in the past stated his admiration of the Russian president, saying he is "worth two Mattarellas", the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, but has condemned the Russian invasion almost on the same stern terms as Meloni while also calling on Kyiv to negotiate more recently. (ANSA).