Europe’s culture clash

Two weeks ago Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s vice-premier and Labour Minister and the top politician of the Five Star Movement (M5S), appointed a new commissioner for the UN cultural organisation Unesco. He chose the dog–whistling, bum-slapping sex–comedy actor Lino Banfi, star of How to Seduce Your Teacher, Policewoman on the Porno Squad and other films. The M5S was launched online by the 1980s comedian Beppe Grillo. It is run on the basis of a private computer operating system called Rousseau. Most Italians look at the M5S as either a breath of fresh air, a necessary gesture of defiance, or a ridiculous episode that will pass.

But you need a sense of humour for that. French President Emmanuel Macron has lately shown himself unable to take the Italian government in his stride. Perhaps it is because he is worried about France’s own protests. The so-called Yellow Vest marchers have been rallying against Macron’s embattled government for three months now. Di Maio travelled to the Loiret to meet the like-minded Christophe Chalençon, a sort of Yellow Vest renegade who has set up his own citizens’ software programme and a new political party, and seems interested in collaborating with M5S in May’s European elections. Chalençon is given to blurting out various non-conforming sentiments on Twitter about the inevitability of civil war and the upside of military rule. Macron responded to Di Maio’s visit by recalling France’s ambassador to Italy for consultations.

Macron is Europe’s leading defender of Brussels and its ways. Politicians of his stripe generally attribute to the EU such miraculous powers of conflict resolution that you would imagine European countries would no longer even need embassies in their neighbours’ capitals at all. But Italy sees things differently. Italy’s government is a coalition of the anti-corruption M5S and the anti-immigration League. Ever since interior minister Matteo Salvini of the League began implementing his policy of turning away boatloads of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Africa, Macron has become Italy’s most strident oratorical adversary.