Italian Deputy PM Calls French President Micron a "Lab Mouse"

"ITALY’S Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of keeping the power from the people and in the hands of the elite, less than 24 hours after he said the young centrist was to blame for the “yellow vest” protests that have unnerved Paris. The young centrist is struggling to curb a wave of violent protests that have rocked his administration to its core, and forced him to scrap a planned carbon tax and up salaries. Mr Salvini, head of the far-right League party, has repeatedly locked horns with Mr Macron over immigration policy, and has jumped on the anti-government protests rattling France as proof the French leader is out-of-touch and arrogant. He said in Rome yesterday: “The ‘yellow vest’ crisis shows that the French have finally understood that their president, Emmanuel Macron, is nothing but a ‘laboratory mouse’ elected to keep the [elitist] political system in place." In a thinly veiled reference to his conservative ally Marine Le Pen’s defeat to Mr Macron in France’s 2017 presidential election, he added: “That Macron was a lab-made product invented to block change just as it was looming in the horizon now strikes me as obvious." Mr Salvini further twisted the knife, mocking Mr Macron’s efforts to position himself as the de facto head of Europe. He said: “Let me remind you that until a few months ago, Macron was seen as the champion of the new Europe by all of Italy’s leftists. He was Europe’s new genius, Europe’s new saviour… But they had it all wrong, again." The Express

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