A trip intended to tighten the increasingly fragile relationship between France and Italy has been canceled at the last minute. Antonio Tajani, the Italian foreign minister, decided at the last minute not to get on a plane to Paris, because he thinks the French interior minister has insulted his country. International news agencies report this on Thursday. He is referring to critical statements that Minister Gerald Darmanin has made on the radio about Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Just before boarding the plane, Tajani heard Darmanin say on the radio that Meloni is powerless to solve her country’s migration problems and that she has falsely led her constituents to believe that she can end the migration crisis. Darmanin also accused her of being responsible for increased numbers of migrants at the French-Italian border. “The insults against the government and Italy are unacceptable,” Tajani wrote then on Twitter. “This is not the spirit in which common European challenges should be faced.”
France quickly tried to appease the situation with a statement stressing its willingness to work closely with Italy, particularly on migration flows. That wasn’t enough to convince Tajani to get over his anger.
Refused rescue ship
It is not the first clash between the two very different governments, which mainly clash over migration. In November, for example, Darmanin called the Italian government “selfish” for refusing for weeks to allow a French charity rescue ship with more than 236 migrants on board to dock. “This will have very serious consequences for our bilateral relationship,” Darmanin said at the time.
Meloni came to power last October following a campaign in which she and her Brothers of Italy party pledged to crack down on the thousands of illegal migrants arriving in Italy via the Mediterranean. The wave of migrants in the southern European country is getting bigger: more than 42,000 people arrived in 2023, compared to 11,000 people in the same period a year earlier. On Thursday, Italy’s parliament voted in favor of a law restricting the rights of new asylum seekers and making prison sentences for human traffickers tougher.
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