Immigration: for Meloni, France leads a different discourse “private and public”.

Tensions seem to persist between France and Italy. Accused of failing to solve her country’s migration problems, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Monday warned France against any “use” of Italy in domestic political issues.

“I would warn against using other countries to resolve domestic political issues, because usually you don’t,” the far-right leader told reporters.

Saying she spoke to Emmanuel Macron the day before Home Secretary Gérald Darmanin’s statements questioning his immigration management, Georgia Meloni felt there was a clear difference between a speech France made “privately and publicly”. “It makes me think that this is a matter of French internal politics,” she commented.

Immigration, a hypersensitive issue between Paris and Rome

The head of Italian diplomacy Antonio Tajani on Friday demanded an apology from the Minister of the Interior, whose remarks about Georgia Meloni sparked a new crisis between Rome and Paris. Evidence of this diplomatic incident is that Antonio Tajani canceled on Thursday evening his first visit to Paris, where he was supposed to meet with his colleague Catherine Colonna.

Ekaterina Colonna quickly published tweet in italian, stating that “Relations between Italy and France are based on mutual respect”. She immediately called her Italian colleague. Immigration has been an extremely sensitive topic in Franco-Italian relations for many years.

Tensions over the mooring of a humanitarian ship

In November, both countries suffered a fever when the Meloni government, barely in power, denied access to a humanitarian ship of the NGO SOS Méditerranée, which was eventually received by France in Toulon with more than 200 migrants on board.

This episode angered Paris, which convened a European meeting to prevent this unprecedented scenario from happening again. Since then, the number of clandestine boat crossings has increased. More than 42,000 people arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean this year, compared with about 11,000 during the same period in 2022, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.