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Recalled French ambassador to return to Italy after diplomatic spat

France's ambassador to Italy is set to return to Rome on Friday after being recalled for a week as a protest, but analysts warn that relations between the two neighbours are likely to remain rocky.

Published: 15 February 2019 09:20 CET
Recalled French ambassador to return to Italy after diplomatic spat
France's ambassador to Italy, Christian Masset, who is set to return to Rome. Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP

“He will return today to Rome,” Nathalie Loiseau told RTL radio on Friday, one week after the envoy was recalled.

Relations between the two countries are at their lowest level since the end of World War II due to repeated clashes between Italy's populist leaders Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini and France's centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

ANALYSIS: What's behind Italy's spat with France?


From left: Matteo Salvini, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Luigi Di Maio. Photos: Vincenzo Pinto/Ludovic Marin/Alberto Pizzoli/AFP 

“I am very happy that the ambassador is on his way back to Italy,” deputy prime minister Di Maio told reporters in Rome. “I shall meet him, I want to ask him for a meeting. In the meantime I wish him a good trip back,” he said.

France announced on February 7th that it was recalling its ambassador to protest “unfounded attacks and outlandish claims” by Italy's coalition government, as well as an unannounced visit to France by Di Maio. 

The government in Paris was left incensed when Di Maio made a surprise visit to France on February 5th to meet with a group of radical 'yellow vest' protesters who have led months of demonstrations against Macron.
 
“The wind of change has crossed the Alps,” Di Maio wrote afterwards, adding that he was preparing a common front ahead of European Parliament elections in May.

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French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a “line was crossed” with the visit, which was organised without French authorities being informed.
 
The last time Paris recalled its ambassador to Rome was during World War II when Italy, under leader Benito Mussolini, invaded France in 1940. 
 
Tunnel tensions
 
The current icy ties between two founding members of the European Union has many analysts wondering about the consequences for the bloc, given that French-Italian ties have been a generally stable axis in a bloc.
 
It already risks complicating a major infrastructure project between the countries that would result in a tunnel being bored under the Alps to link the important regional cities of Lyon and Turin.
 
 

Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP
 
Work on the 57.5-kilometre tunnel, set to cost an estimated €8.6 billion, is currently suspended pending a green light from the Italian government. Di Maio's party, the Five Star Movement, is opposed to the project, while his coalition partner the League, headed by Salvini, is in favour. 
 
“France clearly respects the time that our Italian partners wanted to take. But today we are saying clearly to the Italians that this decision needs to come,” French Transport Minister Elizabeth Borne told the Public Senat channel on Friday.
 
Post-election compromise?
 
Analysts and diplomats say that relations between the countries have been affected by the fundamentally different outlooks of Macron, a pro-European centrist, and the eurosceptic government in Rome, which includes the far right.
 
There are also deep-running economic tensions, competition for influence in Libya, and a sense in Italy that France has done little to help its neighbour cope with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in recent years.
 
Posturing ahead of the elections for the European parliament have exacerbated these tensions, observers say. A French diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Di Maio and Salvini's recent criticism of Macron and France was driven by competition between the two men.
 
 

Photo: Valery Hache/AFP
 
“Di Maio and Salvini are in competition against each other. Their vision is that at some point there will be only one of them,” the diplomat said, saying that the European elections in May would be vital. “At the moment there's a sort of feverish election campaigning,” he said.
 
Dominique Moisi, a foreign affairs analyst at the Montaigne Institute think-tank in Paris, told AFP recently that there was a “greater chance of compromise” after the elections.
 
“I can't see them [both sides] being reconciled, that's not possible,” he said. “But limiting the tensions, there's room for manoeuvre,” he said.
 
By AFP's Valérie Leroux and Adam Plowright

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POLITICS

8 things you never knew about Andorra

The tiny statelet nestled in the Pyrenees mountains that mark the border between France and Spain hit the headlines with its new language requirement for residency permits – but what else is there to know about Andorra?

Published: 26 April 2024 15:11 CEST
8 things you never knew about Andorra

This week, Andorra passed a law setting a minimum Catalan language requirement for foreign residents. 

It’s not often the tiny, independent principality in the mountains makes the news – other than, perhaps, when its national football team loses (again) to a rather larger rival in international qualifying competitions.

The national side are due to play Spain in early June, as part of the larger nation’s warm-up for the Euro 2024 tournament in Germany. Here, then, in case you’re watching that match, at Estadio Nuevo Vivero, are a few facts about Andorra that you can astound your fellow football fans with…

Size matters

Small though it is – it has an area of just 468 square kilometres, a little more than half the size of the greater Paris area – there are five smaller states in Europe, 15 smaller countries in the world by area, and 10 smaller by population.

People

Its population in 2023 was 81,588. That’s fewer people than the city of Pau, in southwest France (which is itself the 65th largest town in France, by population).

High-living

The principality’s capital, Andorra la Vella (population c20,000 – about the same population as Dax) is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres above sea level. 

Spoken words

The official language – and the one you’ll need for a residency permit – is Catalan. But visitors will find Spanish, Portuguese and French are also commonly spoken, and a fair few people will speak some English, too.

Sport

We’ve already mentioned the football. But Andorra’s main claim to sporting fame is as a renowned winter sports venue. With about 350km of ski runs, across 3,100 hectares of mountainous terrain, it boasts the largest ski area in the Pyrenees.

Economic model

Tourism, the mainstay of the economy, accounts for roughly 80 percent of Andorra’s GDP. More than 10 million tourists visit every year.

It also has no sales tax on most items – which is why you’ll often find a queue at the French border as locals pop into the principality to buy things like alcohol, cigarettes and (bizarrely) washing powder, which are significantly cheaper.

Head of state

Andorra has two heads of state, because history. It’s believed the principality was created by Charlemagne (c748 – 814CE), and was ruled by the count of Urgell up to 988CE, when it was handed over to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Urgell. The principality, as we know it today, was formed by a treaty between the bishop of Urgell and the count of Foix in 1278.

Today, the state is jointly ruled by two co-princes: the bishop of Urgell in Catalonia, Spain and … the president of France, who (despite the French aversion to monarchy and nobility) has the title Prince of Andorra, following the transfer of the count of Foix’s claims to the Crown of France and, subsequently, to the head of state of the French Republic. 

Military, of sorts

Andorra does have a small, mostly ceremonial army. But all able-bodied Andorran men aged between 21 and 60 are obliged to respond to emergency situations, including natural disasters.

Legally, a rifle should be kept and maintained in every Andorran household – though the same law also states that the police will supply a firearm if one is required.

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