Former Italian Matteo Renzi addresses the press while campaigning for the Italian Democratic Party leadership, in Brussels on April 28,2017 | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images Matteo Renzi tries the Macron approach Former prime minister, campaigning for the party leadership, softens his critical tone on the EU.

Matteo Renzi toned down the EU-critical rhetoric of his final months as Italian prime minister during his visit to Brussels on Friday to drum up support for his bid to be restored as head of the Democratic Party (PD) in its primaries this weekend.

With aides suggesting on social media that French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron's pro-EU stance, which helped him beat Euroskeptic Marine Le Pen in the election's first round, could be a boost for Renzi, he talked about "Angela, François and I" when referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande.

Renzi even stood in front of a display showing the EU flag, and felt the need to explain why, in the run-up to his failed constitutional referendum that cost him the prime ministership last December, he had removed the EU flag from behind his desk.

"It wasn't anger, it was calculated gesture," Renzi told PD followers at a hotel near the European Parliament, adding that it was in response to the European Commission demanding Italian action on its budget deficit when it had been hit by an earthquake.

The Italian and international media have speculated about the similarities between Renzi and Macron, with Renzi's slogan for the PD primary this Sunday — In Cammino ("on the way") — almost a direct translation of the name of Macron's centrist political movement, En Marche.

One close Renzi aide, Giuliano Da Empoli, wrote on Facebook the day after Macron's first-round victory on April 23 that the French result “shows that one can be at the same time a convinced pro-European and a harsh critic of the status quo."

That was the tone Renzi tried to strike in Brussels on Friday, repeating his line that the EU "needs radical change" and taking a dig at Germany for its trade surplus, while warning about the dangers of populism.

“With the radicals you win the primary elections but then you lose the elections,” he told the audience.

In the French campaign, which comes to a head with the second-round vote on May 7, the candidate closest to Renzi's Democratic Party was Benoît Hamon, who won the ruling Socialist Party's primaries but took only 6 percent of the vote on election night. That must resonate for Renzi, who wants to regain control of the PD to prepare a bid for a new term as prime minister in elections due early next year.