Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in a fiery address to the Italian parliament, excoriated the gang of six that excluded her from participating in the selection process for the European Union’s top jobs. And now Ursula von der Leyen will receive a second mandate as EU Commission president — without Signora Meloni’s assent.

Signora Meloni’s governing coalition — spearheaded by her Fratelli d’Italia party — garnered 53 percent of the European Parliament vote in Italy.  Moreover, she leads the European Conservatives and Reformists, which represents parliament’s third largest group — a free-market-oriented continental movement of nationalists.

Yet the Italian premier was excluded from the negotiations over key EU posts by an ideological faction of leaders. Among those were France’s Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz of Germany, and Poland’s Donald Tusk. The other three were the prime ministers of the Netherlands, Spain, and Greece.

That Signora Meloni has become the face of a revitalized right while remaining steadfastly Atlanticist irks Monsieur Macron, whose governing party won but a paltry 16 percent of the European Parliament vote in France. Sacre bleu. This electoral result so rattled the “Jupiterian” French president that he called for a snap parliamentary election, something that could make France ungovernable.

Indeed, after the first round of voting on June 30, Bloomberg News reported that Monsieur Macron’s gamble may well have been the height of hubristic folly. With his centrist alliance projected to win between 60 and 125 seats versus Marine Le Pen’s tally of 230 to 305 seats.

Indeed, Madame Le Pen crowed that Monsieur Macron is  “practically wiped out.” Should the 55-year old rightist attain an absolute majority in the second round on July 7, “Macron will be left with no choice but to enter into a power-sharing arrangement with her,” Bloomberg reports.

Monsieur Macron may rue the day that he led the charge to rebuke Giorgia Meloni. In labeling the European Union a sprawling “bureaucratic giant,” Signora Meloni castigated the motley crew of socialists, liberals, and allegedly center-right actors who conspired against her and the reinvigorated Magic Boot she leads. Her EU parliament coalition, she said, “ is a group that is not liked by those who are deciding.”

Furthermore she railed against “those who argue that citizens are not mature enough to take certain decisions” and who believe “that oligarchy is essentially the only acceptable form of democracy.”

Though the Polish premier, Donald Tusk, was far from lachrymose after backstabbing Signora Meloni, Mr. Tusk admitted that the decision to ostracize the Italian premier — who has emerged as Europe’s most pivotal leader — was indeed a “mistake” and one that disrespected Italy.

According to the Financial Times, Mr. Tusk conceded that “the decision” should have been “for Madame Meloni and other leaders . . . There is no Europe without Italy and there is no decision without Prime Minister Meloni, that is obvious.”

Ultimately, Signora Meloni abstained when the voting began for Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president. However, the Italian premier voted against former Portuguese prime minister António Costa for European Council president and Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as chief diplomat.

The world is facing geopolitical crises aplenty — from Ukraine to the Middle East to Communist China. Political instability is proliferating as never before. What’s more, the notion of mutually assured destruction no longer seems to be a bar against all-out nuclear war.

Just think of Vladimir Putin floating the idea of employing  battlefield nuclear weapons. Or Kim Jong-un’s impromptu nuclear threats against America, Japan, and Free Korea.

Though she has been depicted as a jack-booted, rabble-rousing squadrista hell-bent on becoming a female Duce, Giorgia Meloni is actually a peacemaker in the Reagan mold, a trust-but-verify diplomatic leader.

In an interview with French magazine Le Point following the European parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary urged Signora Meloni and Marine Le Pen to join forces: “If they manage to work together, in one unique group or a coalition, they will be a force for Europe. The appeal of their cooperation would be very strong.”

While Prime Minister Meloni will indeed forge a modus vivendi with Madame Le Pen, the two women are cut from different political cloths. Unlike the French rightist, who seeks to fragment the Continent, Signora Meloni is an ardent Italian nationalist who remains central to preserving the West.

In a recent New York Times opinion essay, Christopher Caldwell notes how “Europeans are mostly not aware that they have been enlisted in a project that has as its end point the extinction of France, Germany, Italy and the rest of Europe’s historic nations as meaningful political units.” Giorgia Meloni stands athwart that project, yelling “Basta.”