Why Italy and France are each other's closest sister nation..

[JohnSmith]

Remember I am an American,, so I may have a different perspective than Europeans. As someone from the outside looking in I see a lot of similarities among Europeans that I do not think Europeans see looking at themselves from the inside.

The UK is the only European country to me that really stands out as an outlier as they follow the Anglo-Saxon Economic model which is similar to the USA.

[JohnSmith]

One Major difference is the French are very productive workers. Italians are more similar to the Spaniards and British when you look at their productivity.

http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/

[Ouistreham]

Germany would be against this as they are Center-Right.

Germany looks a little bit more Conservative than the both of them.

Merkel's Germany welcomed one million Muslim migrants last year.
Is it what you call right-wing policies?

France promised to take 30,000 of them and actually admitted less than 7,000...

Typical French hypocrisy.
Sometimes I like it...

[JohnSmith]

Merkel's Germany welcomed one million Muslim migrants last year.
Is it what you call right-wing policies?

France promised to take 30,000 of them and actually admitted less than 7,000...

Typical French hypocrisy.
Sometimes I like it...

Merkel's own party was not happy with her. Her days are Chancellor may be numbered.

[Ouistreham]

Remember I am an American,, so I may have a different perspective than Europeans. As someone from the outside looking in I see a lot of similarities among Europeans that I do not think Europeans see looking at themselves from the inside.

The UK is the only European country to me that really stands out as an outlier as they follow the Anglo-Saxon Economic model which is similar to the USA.

Hey, this is interesting.
There might be some reasons for which you feel somewhat closer to the UK than to Continental Europe, you know.
After all they speak a handsome American dialect in the Blessed Isle.
The UK is a lovely country I love to visit when I'm given the opportunity to, but I can't say I'm impressed. In term of GDP-PPO they are just level with us, though they have more work hours than ours, probably due to lower productivity.
In short, I don't find any reason to suppose their social/economic model is superior to ours.

[Manuel]

Remember I am an American,, so I may have a different perspective than Europeans. As someone from the outside looking in I see a lot of similarities among Europeans that I do not think Europeans see looking at themselves from the inside.

The UK is the only European country to me that really stands out as an outlier as they follow the Anglo-Saxon Economic model which is similar to the USA.

Keep in mind that the term "protectionist" really doesn't apply that much among EU members anymore. Germany, the UK, Italy and France all have the same policy on trade and that is the EU trade policy. If you take a look at the economic indices, you will see all EU members have the same score on trade freedom and that is 'cos of common trade policy.

You're right about your intuition regarding Italy and France. Regardless of what the French user says, Italy and France are similar in economic freedoms overall (in fact, France has tougher labour laws than Italy if u look at their scores). Both somewhat low on the list btw, numbers 72 for France and 79 for Italy (as opposed to numbers 12 and 17 for the UK and the US respectively).

Btw the British are dominating u in economic freedoms and if Trump is serious about trade and so on, it's downhill from here. RIP American liberty.

[Laberia]

Their capital cities are considered "twin" cities and while most cities have more than one twinned city, Paris and Rome are one another's only.

Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris.
Solo Parigi è degna di Roma; solo Roma è degna di Parigi.
"Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris."

Since 1956.

Did anyone know about this? I just learned it now.

Obviously other nations are close to each -- Italy and Greece, France and Germany, etc. but I do think Italy and France have a special bond.

European countries.
Neighbours.
Latin nations.
Catholic nations, (with Catholicism as predominant religion in France).

[NSXD60]

There's a very long cultural exchange, as, for example, Leonardo Da Vinci moved to France in the last three years of his life, which is how the Mona Lisa ended up at the Louvre.

[Incal]

No country is close to France really.

[Longobarda]

besides what John Smith and others here have highlighted, there are many other things that make France and Italy similar and rivals: fashion, wine production, style (either in furniture, house decoration or architecture), agricolture, arts, cinema etc.
Culturally we have historically considered each-others as cousins. Specially northern-central Italy with our gallo-italic languages. Not so our user Ouistreham? Too bad, I used to work in a very international environment and the french I know did not have the same attitude he has.

France is at now more protectionist than Italy was in the past, but the foreign politics of Italy is more similar to the one of Germany than to any other nation in Europe. The axis Berlin-Rome is still alive......

The problem of being center-left or center-right of the two nations: I want to remind you that Macron is center and not center-right and our government at now is center-left towards center. Before, France had a center-left with Hollande and Italy had center-right with Berlusconi. So, the tendency is as in all mature democracies: variable following the democratic voters will.
Germany with Merkel is not to be defined "right". Merkel is democrat-christian (i.e. center) but the german governments in these last years cannot rule alone. Due to their electoral law they always have to form alliances to have the numbers to rule.

P.S. by the way our South is not "underdeveloped" like Ouistreham says. Of course is not like northern central Italy due to their higher unemployment but the liberal and work-protection laws are extended along all the peninsula as well as health care or welfare laws. The problems our South has is common to many other nations in Europe.