The head of Italian diplomacy on Friday demanded an apology from Gérald Darmanin. The Interior Minister’s remarks accusing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of being “unable to resolve the migration issues on which she was elected” have caused a new crisis between Paris and Rome. “It’s a gratuitous and vulgar insult addressed to a friendly, allied country” and “when someone gratuitously offends another person, the minimum is that they apologize,” said Antonio Tajani in a daily interview. Il Corriere della Sera.
Antonio Tajani canceled Thursday evening his first visit to Paris, where he was to meet his counterpart Catherine Colonna. The latter quickly posted a message in Italian on Twitter, saying that “the relationship between Italy and France is based on mutual respect, between our two countries and between their leaders”. She immediately called Antonio Tajani. “Catherine Colonna called me twice, to tell me that she was sorry, she was very cordial”, assured the Italian minister, while considering that the explanations from Paris remained “insufficient”.
“A stab in the back”
“This is a cold attack, a stab in the back from a senior member of the French government. There are things that cannot be ignored. The rest of the Macron executive, however, certainly does not think like Darmanin,” insisted Antonio Tajani.
Immigration has been an ultra-sensitive subject in Franco-Italian relations for years. In November, the two countries experienced a strong outbreak of fever 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 (south ) with more than 200 migrants on board.
Véran tries to put out the fire
The episode had angered Paris, which had called a European meeting so that this unprecedented scenario did not happen again. Since then, clandestine crossings by boat have increased with the development of a new maritime corridor between Tunisia and Italy, on the front line at the gates of Europe. 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.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran tried on Friday to extinguish the fire, assuring that there had been “no desire to ostracize Italy”. “The Italians, we discuss, they love politics, but they assume the choices they have made and they want to be left to assume their choices”, he explained, “and that’s good because we have no intention of doing otherwise”.