Italian foreign minister cancels Paris visit over French ‘insults’
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says he has called off his visit to Paris after a French minister hurled ‘insults’ at Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
In an interview with RMC radio on Thursday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin claimed that Meloni was "unable to solve the migration problems on which she was elected" last year, accusing her of "lying" to voters that she could end a crisis over increasing numbers of boat migrants.
Tajani, who was preparing to fly to Paris to see his French counterpart on Thursday, denounced the remarks "unacceptable" and pulled out of the scheduled trip in protest.
"The insults to the government and Italy uttered by the minister @GDarmanin are unacceptable. This is not the spirit in which common European challenges should be addressed," Tajani wrote on Twitter later in the day.
The French Foreign Ministry was quick to take action in a statement, trying to defuse the row and seeking to reassure Rome of its willingness to work closely with Italy.
"It is also in a spirit of solidarity that the French government wishes to work with Italy to face the common challenge of rapidly increasing migratory flows, particularly from the central Mediterranean," it added. Ties between the two nations are "based on mutual respect," it said.
It was the latest episode in a series of clashes between Paris and Rome since Meloni, a member of post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, took office last October at the head of a nationalist, conservative government, which has a very different world vision to that of French President Emmanuel Macron.
The standoff between the two European countries is over where to disembark illegal refugees picked up after trying to reach Europe from North Africa.
Since January, Italy has seen a dramatic surge in arrivals - more than 42,000 - by sea from Tunisia, where authorities have launched a campaign against undocumented migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. The surge prompted Italy to declare a state of emergency.
Only 11,200 illegal migrants reached Italy in the same period last year.
The sharp rise in numbers is a setback to Meloni's party, which had promised prior to elections last year to crack down on irregular immigration one it assumed power in Italy.
During his interview, Darmanin compared Meloni to the far-right French leader Marine Le Pen, a political foe of Macron. "The extreme right has a vice. That of lying to the population."
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