STRASBOURG, France (AP) — France's Marine Le Pen, one of the leading voices of the far right in the European Union, is throwing her political weight behind Italian hard-line interior minister Matteo Salvini to set up a major populist group in the EU legislature after next month's elections.

The head of France's National Rally party said Monday that "we have mandated Matteo Salvini ... to try to build this very big group of the Defense of European Nations."

Even though far-right populist parties sometimes have widely diverging stances on issues, Le Pen says there is more that unites them than divides them.

Currently, populist parties are spread across different groups in the legislature, such as Christian Democrat and Socialist groupings. Some, like Le Pen's party, have long stood alone in the legislature.