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HEALTH

Italian ministers furious at French ‘coronavirus pizza’ joke

A French television channel apologised to Italy on Tuesday for airing a mock advert for "corona pizza" in which a coughing chef hacks green phlegm onto Italy's national dish.

Published: 3 March 2020 17:25 CET
Italian ministers furious at French 'coronavirus pizza' joke
Italy's service sector is suffering as customers stay home amid the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

Foreign minister Luigi Di Maio slammed a 10-second gag on the satirical Groland programme on French network Canal+, in which the red tomato base, white mozzarella and green mucus make up the colours of the Italian national flag, as “bad taste and unacceptable”.

LATEST: New coronavirus infections in Italy show signs of slowing

Globally, more than 3,100 people have died of the coronavirus and over 90,000 have been infected.

Italy is the worst-hit country in Europe, with 79 deaths and over 2,500 people infected.

“Here's the new Italian pizza, which is going to spread around the world,” the fake advert says.

Countries from Britain to China and France have reported cases of people bringing the virus back with them from Italy.

“Making fun of the Italians like that, with the coronavirus emergency we are facing, is profoundly disrespectful”, Di Maio said, adding that he had ordered the Italian embassy in Paris to voice Rome's displeasure.

He insisted the media were “morally obliged” not to spread disinformation, saying the Italian economy was paying the price.

The tourism sector in Italy has been hit particularly hard, with lots of airlines cutting or reducing flights to the north, where the outbreak is concentrated, and hotels reporting widespread cancellations while monuments and museums lie eerily empty.

Soon after Di Maio's comments, Canal+ issued a statement admitting that its joke was “in very bad taste”.

Canal+ said it had removed the clip from its reruns and replay channel, and was “sending a letter of apology to the Italian ambassador to Paris this [Tuesday] afternoon”.

READ ALSO: Is it still safe to visit Italy after the coronavirus outbreak?


The unusually empty Piazza del Duomo in Milan. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

Earlier Italy's agricultural minister Teresa Bellanova slammed the video as “shameful and horrifying”.

“This is not satire, it's an insult to an entire nation,” she said. “As the European and international authorities have repeatedly stated, it is not transmitted through food.”

Despite that, Di Maio said unspecified countries had “called for a 'virus free' label on Italian products”.

The French joke also bombed with Italian farmers' association Coldiretti. It slammed it a “stab in the back” for the Made in Italy industry, worth some €5 billion in exports to France, the second largest market after Germany.

READ ALSO: 

Italy and France historically compete on wine, cheese and bubbles, with Prosecco giving Champagne a run for its money.

The Alpine neighbours have long had turbulent relations. The last time the neighbours swapped outright insults was under Italy's populist government, when political and diplomatic dialogue effectively ground to a halt.

But Di Maio opted on Tuesday for the moral high ground, inviting the video's makers “to come and eat pizza in Italy, a pizza like they have never eaten in their lives”.

Canal+ made no mention of Di Maio's offer in its statement.

READ ALSO: 'Sadness and fear won't solve problems': Italians respond to coronavirus with wine and jokes

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CLIMATE CRISIS

‘Extreme’ climate blamed for world’s worst wine harvest in 62 years

World wine production dropped 10 percent last year, the biggest fall in more than six decades, because of "extreme" climate changes, the body that monitors the trade said on Thursday.

Published: 26 April 2024 08:48 CEST
'Extreme' climate blamed for world's worst wine harvest in 62 years

“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) that covers nearly 50 wine producing countries.

Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent.

The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November.

In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank three per cent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.

Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine producing regions.”

Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “the most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.

“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.

France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a four percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.

Wine consumption last year was however at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall-off over the last five years, according to the figures.

The trend is partly due to price rises caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China – down a quarter – due to its economic slowdown.

The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita.

Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue.

“What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said.

Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares (17.7 million acres).

But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a three percent rise in the size of its vineyards.

France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distil their grapes.

The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.

Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the centre and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions”, he said.

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