French government plays down Italy migration row

The French government sought to play down a fresh row with Italy over migration on Friday, saying Rome was an "essential partner" after a spat with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Published: 6 May 2023 08:41 CEST

French government plays down Italy migration row

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin (L) and Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni (R). Photo: Ludovic MARIN: Andreas SOLARO/AFP.

Italy’s foreign minister cancelled a trip to Paris on Thursday over what he termed “unacceptable” comments from French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who said Meloni was “incapable” of tackling her country’s migration crisis.

“Italy is an essential partner to France… our relationship is founded on mutual respect,” French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said late Friday.

“We will prioritise consultation and calm dialogue to continue to work together,” she added.

French government spokesman Olivier Veran had earlier told the Cnews channel that “there was no desire from the interior minister to ostracise Italy in any way at all”.

“We have discussions with the Italians — they love politics — but they want to do things their own way, and they want others to let them,” he added.”And that’s good because we don’t intend to do otherwise.”

Italian media reports on Friday suggested Darmanin’s outburst infuriated Rome, with Meloni said to be on the verge of cancelling a planned trip to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron.

In a television interview on Thursday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Darmanin’s remarks were “a stab in the back” and he was waiting for him to “apologise to the prime minister, the government, and Italy”.

‘Gratuitous and vulgar’

On Friday, Tajani again demanded an apology, saying that was “the least that they can do”.

In an interview with newspaper Il Corriere della Sera he also called Darmanin’s remark a “gratuitous and vulgar insult towards a friendly and allied country”.

The French and Italian governments have clashed repeatedly in recent years over the management of their common land border and the admission of humanitarian boats carrying migrants rescued while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune, a close ally of Macron and a former Europe minister, was less conciliatory than Veran in a separate interview on Friday.

He stressed the political differences between Meloni’s right-wing government and Macron’s pro-EU centrist cabinet.

“There is not a solution to the migration issue which does not include European cooperation,” Beaune told Europe 1 radio.

“And you can see that every time there’s an attempt to go it alone, whichever country it is, it doesn’t work,” he added.

Separately on Friday, the head of French immigration authority OFII said nearly a half of migrants arriving on Italy’s Mediterranean shore were from French-speaking sub-Saharan African countries.

Within those French-speaking arrivals, citizens of Ivory Coast were the biggest group, OFII boss Didier Leschi told the Franceinfo broadcaster.

Many of the arrivals headed straight to France and were rarely properly registered by the Italian authorities, Leschi said.

“That’s why there are strong tensions between the two countries,” he said.

EU rules call for migrants to be registered in the arrival country first, and for subsequent discussions to determine which migrants should go to what EU member country, he said.

“It is urgent to improve the burden distribution across the EU,” he said.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE