When Italy’s deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, wrote an impassioned letter to France’s Yellow Jackets protesters earlier this week, it was seen by the Élysée as an affront. After all, the sometimes-violent demonstrators have spent the past several weekends rampaging through downtown Paris, vandalizing national monuments, invading ministries and chasing police down the French capital’s streets. “We have followed your battle from the first,” Di Maio wrote on his blog. “We know what animates your spirit … We are ready to support you where you need it … Yellow Jackets, do not give in.” The French minister for Europe, Nathalie Loiseau, responded that countries should have “respect for allies and neighbors,” suggesting the Italian government instead “look to the wellbeing of Italians.” But while there’s little love lost between the governments in Paris and Rome, Di Maio’s embrace of the Yellow Jackets likely has more to do with domestic politics than foreign affairs. The Italian government is licking its wounds after losing a high-profile showdown with Brussels over its next budget. And Di Maio’s 5Star Movement is slipping in the polls, increasingly eclipsed by its coalition partner, the far-right League led by Matteo Salvini. “My impression is that it’s not an anti-French move but an internal objective to show the base that they are still an innovative anti-establishment party,” said Giovanni Orsina, a professor of political history at LUISS University in Rome. “They need to show activists that they are still an anti-systemic force of resistance.” AFP.