FRANCE’S National Rally (formerly National Front) leader Marine Le Pen joined Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in Rome today to launch a campaign to co-ordinate far-right politics across Europe.

The pair hosted a news conference aimed at planning ahead for the spring 2019 European elections, which they hope to use to shift EU politics sharply to the right on race and immigration.

Ms Le Pen spoke favourably of a plan by Steve Bannon, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, to set up a foundation called “the movement” to offer assistance to extreme nationalist parties around Europe, but denied that the far right would be controlled from the US.

“We and we alone will shape the political force that is born from the European elections,” she declared as Mr Salvini applauded.

The Italian politician, a self-declared fan of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, sought to exploit popular resentment of EU budgetary rules constraining public spending, saying Italy would “not cave” to the markets over its plan to increase expenditure in the next budget.

The Rome summit comes a week after the socialist France Insoumise (France Unbowed) movement led by Jean-Luc Melenchon announced its own game plan for the European elections, with campaign manager Manuel Bompard saying it was determined to ensure the vote was not about immigration but about “imposing a major setback on [French President Emmanuel] Macron” and his agenda of cuts and privatisations.

Mr Bompard urged people angry at EU-imposed neoliberalism not to fall for the promises of the far right, arguing that if France Unbowed scores a victory over Mr Macron, this would “inflict a defeat on Europe as it stands today” and emphasised the need to fight the EU treaties and change rules on posted workers.

France Unbowed has also been seeking to co-ordinate at European level, breaking with the French communists over their continued tolerance of Greece’s governing Syriza party as a member of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left and seeking new allies in an alliance called Maintenant le Peuple (Now the People).

Mr Melenchon also held talks with British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn at that party’s conference last month in Liverpool.