Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, accused by Gérald Darmanin of being “incapable” of solving her country’s migration problems, warned France on Monday against any “use” of Italy in “domestic political problems. “
“I would caution against using other countries to settle domestic political issues, because that’s something you don’t usually do,” the far-right Italian leader told reporters at the time. that a diplomatic crisis broke out between Paris and Rome.
Different speech “in private and in public”
Stating that she had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron the day before statements by French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin questioning his management of immigration, Giorgia Meloni considered that there was clearly a difference between the discourse that France held “in private and in public”.
“It makes me think that this is a matter of internal French politics,” she commented.
The head of Italian diplomacy, Antonio Tajani, on Friday demanded an apology from Gérald Darmanin, whose comments on Giorgia Meloni’s inability to manage immigration caused a new crisis between Rome and Paris, which has since been trying to calm the game.
Antonio Tajani canceled Thursday evening his first visit to Paris, where he was to meet his counterpart Catherine Colonna, after statements by Gérald Darmanin accusing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of being “unable to resolve the migration issues on which she was elected” .
“Mutual respect”
Catherine Colonna quickly posted a message in Italian on Twitter, saying that “the relationship between Italy and France is based on mutual respect”. She immediately called Antonio Tajani. Immigration has been an ultra-sensitive subject in Franco-Italian relations for years.
In November, the two countries experienced a fever pitch when the Meloni government, barely in power, refused to allow a humanitarian ship from the NGO SOS Méditerranée to dock, which ended up being welcomed by France in Toulon with more than 200 migrants on board. The episode had angered Paris, which had called a European meeting so that this unprecedented scenario did not happen again.
Since then, the number of clandestine crossings by boat has increased. According to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 42,000 people have arrived via the Mediterranean in Italy this year compared to around 11,000 over the same period in 2022.
Nearly half of them come from French-speaking countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Tunisia, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mali), according to figures from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
