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ROME — Italy’s capital became the stage for two massive dueling demonstrations on Saturday, as a far-right grassroots initiative pushing hardline anti-migration policies crossed the threshold to force parliamentary consideration, catapulting the once-marginal idea of “remigration” into the center of national political discourse. The initiative, branded “Remigration and Reconquest,” collected the 50,000 certified signatures required to trigger a parliamentary discussion on its proposal, though no voting timeline has been set to date.

The proposal, advanced by a coalition of right-wing extremist groups, outlines sweeping measures targeting non-Italians that include forced deportations, state-funded incentives for voluntary departure, and broad policy language that critics warn could be extended to target even legal residents and naturalized citizens. On Saturday, several thousand anti-migration demonstrators traveled from across the country to Rome to rally in support of the plan. Video and on-the-ground reports show crowd members singing the Italian national anthem, and multiple instances of demonstrators raising their arms in the fascist salute while chanting “Duce! Duce!” — the infamous honorific for Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943.

Countering that demonstration, tens of thousands of pro-migration protesters gathered in a separate district of Rome Saturday evening. The pro-migration rally drew support from a broad coalition of left-wing political parties, major national trade unions, and immigration advocacy groups, with many attendees also waving Palestinian flags in a show of solidarity amid the ongoing Gaza conflict.

Italian authorities deployed thousands of police officers across the city to keep the two opposing protest groups separated, a precaution that prevented violent clashes. Officials confirmed no incidents of violence were reported by the end of the day.

The heated national debate over the proposal presents a delicate political tightrope for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling right-wing coalition. While the anti-immigration League party has thrown its support behind opening parliamentary debate, Meloni’s own Brothers of Italy party and its centrist coalition partners have been far more cautious about backing a plan tied to extremist circles. Leaders have raised concerns about potential legal challenges to the proposal and the risk of deepening internal rifts within the governing alliance.

Opposition parties and legal scholars have repeatedly warned that the plan violates both Italy’s constitution and international anti-discrimination law, as it explicitly targets people on the basis of ethnic origin — a classification that would include naturalized Italian citizens and even their Italian-born descendants.

Notably, the controversy over the “remigration” proposal comes as Meloni’s government is simultaneously pursuing an expansion of legal migration to solve pressing labor gaps. Last year, the administration approved a multi-year plan that will allow hundreds of thousands of non-European Union workers to enter Italy legally to fill shortages in key sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, and care work.

Saturday’s protests also came 24 hours after a landmark new European Union migration policy went into force across all 27 member states. The EU Migration and Asylum Pact represents the culmination of years of fractious, deadlocked negotiations to replace the bloc’s previous migration framework, which was widely discredited as a dysfunctional failure. That old system’s collapse opened political space for far-right parties across the continent to weaponize public anxiety over migration to gain electoral support.

As leaders of the world’s major industrialized economies prepare to gather in southern France for next week’s G7 summit, new details have emerged about the packed diplomatic agenda awaiting former U.S. President Donald Trump, including a high-profile celebratory dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the iconic Palace of Versailles.

Senior White House administration officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity under the White House’s established press ground rules, confirmed Saturday that the summit will bring a full slate of one-on-one bilateral meetings for Trump, who has publicly stated he is working to finalize a new Iran nuclear agreement in the coming days. Trump is set to depart Washington D.C. on Sunday evening immediately after marking his 80th birthday with a primetime mixed martial arts event hosted on the White House South Lawn, and will arrive in France for the summit on Monday afternoon.

Following the conclusion of the main G7 gathering in the scenic Alpine lakeside town of Evian-les-Bains, Macron will host Trump for a private dinner at Versailles, the opulent former royal residence just outside Paris that has long stood as a symbol of Franco-American diplomatic ties. According to the Élysée Palace, the dinner will also commemorate the 240th anniversary of U.S. independence, an occasion chosen to highlight the deep historical friendship between the two nations.

Versailles, which served as the official seat of the French monarchy from the reign of Louis XIV through Louis XVI, is a regular venue for state visits and meetings with visiting global leaders. In 2021, Macron welcomed Britain’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the palace for its 400th-anniversary celebrations, hosting a state dinner in the palace’s famous Hall of Mirrors, one of the most famous spaces among the sprawling estate’s 2,300 rooms. Prior to that, in 2017 shortly after his first election to the presidency, Macron welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to Versailles, a meeting that took place before relations between Paris and Moscow collapsed entirely following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Beyond his scheduled meeting with Macron, Trump is also set to hold separate bilateral talks with the leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and India. All four nations have been invited to participate in this year’s summit as guest countries at Macron’s request.

The 2025 G7 summit, which brings together leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, will cover a wide range of pressing global policy topics. Officials confirm the agenda includes discussions on sustainable global economic growth, securing resilient supply chains for critical minerals needed for the energy transition, addressing irregular cross-border migration, and establishing global guardrails for artificial intelligence development.

Two ongoing conflicts are expected to dominate much of the off-agenda and bilateral conversation: the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and escalating tensions around Iran. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is confirmed to attend the summit to meet with G7 leaders, but administration officials noted that no formal bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy has been added to the U.S. president’s official schedule as of Saturday. The pair could still hold an informal meeting on the summit sidelines, officials added.

The report was compiled from contributions by AP correspondent Petrequin, reporting from London, and fellow AP writer Aamer Madhani.

Ahead of the upcoming Group of Seven summit kicking off Monday in France, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has ramped up his diplomatic push to realign Canada’s global partnerships away from the United States and toward deeper integration with Europe, making his case for collective middle-power action during a visit to Dublin this weekend.

Carney’s European tour began with a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, followed by talks Saturday with Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin. During a remarks delivered at Dublin’s Trinity College, the Canadian leader laid out a clear alternative path for nations caught in an era of intensifying great power rivalry. Instead of smaller and middle-sized countries competing to win favor from major global powers, Carney argues that uniting with like-minded allies can multiply collective strength to create an independent, influential third way.

“ In a world of great power rivalry, middle powers have a choice — to compete for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact,” Carney told the audience. This framing builds on comments he made earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he made global headlines by declaring the traditional post-Cold War rules-based global order defunct and condemned coercive pressure exerted by great powers on smaller sovereign states.

Carney highlighted the combined scale of Canada and the European Union to back his case for closer cooperation: together, the two blocs hold a combined population more than double that of the United States, a combined GDP matching that of the U.S., and a collective defense budget twice the size of China’s. He framed the Canada-EU partnership as a values-driven force for global good, rooted in shared commitments to human rights, individual dignity, and pluralism.

“The new world order will be built starting with Europe,” Carney stated during a joint press conference with Martin ahead of his Trinity College address. “Canada is the most European of non-European countries. We are transforming our cooperation with Europe.”

This shift toward Europe is already well underway, Carney noted. Just five months ago, Canada became the first non-European country granted membership in the EU’s SAFE defense procurement initiative. In the 15 months since Carney took office as prime minister, this trip marks his ninth visit to the continent, and Canada has already secured 56 critical minerals partnerships across more than 10 European nations. Carney has also set a formal national target to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports over the next decade, a goal shaped by ongoing trade friction with Washington under the second Trump administration.

Ireland, which is set to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union starting in July, has fully embraced Canada’s ambition. “Prime Minister Carney has spoken with great clarity and conviction about Canada’s desire to deepen its engagement with Europe. Ireland warmly and unreservedly welcomes that ambition, and we will do what we can to strengthen relations between the European union and Canada during our forthcoming presidency,” Martin confirmed.

Even as Canada leans into closer European ties, trade tensions with the U.S. remain a lingering issue, with the upcoming July 1 mandatory review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) looming on the horizon. The USMCA, the latest iteration of a North American free trade framework that has linked the three regional economies since the 1990s, has been the subject of conflicting signals from Trump, who said this week he may choose not to renew the pact.

Carney pushed back against fears of a full collapse of the regional trade arrangement, noting that the Trump administration has made clear it has no interest in rewriting the core structure of the agreement. Changing the agreement fundamentally would require congressional approval, a step Carney said the White House has no intention of taking. He added that roughly 85% of Canadian exports to the U.S. already enter tariff-free under the current USMCA framework, a status the administration has chosen to maintain.

A senior anonymous U.S. administration official confirmed that no bilateral meeting between Trump and Carney is scheduled for the G7 summit, and that no major trade breakthroughs are expected during the gathering. The official did note that the White House has viewed Canada’s recent reversal of a regulation requiring foreign streaming platforms to invest a share of their Canadian revenue into local content and news as a positive step, and that Washington has received outreach from Ottawa for further trade discussions.

Carney acknowledged that Trump’s trade policies have created uncertainty for cross-border investment, a key factor driving Canada’s push to diversify its economic and geopolitical partnerships. The new alignment with Europe, he argues, will strengthen both blocs at a time of shifting global power dynamics.