The tea towel continues to burn between Paris and Rome. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, accused of being unable to solve her country's migration problems, warned the France on Monday against any "use" of Italy in domestic political problems.

"I would caution against using other countries to solve domestic political problems, because it's something you don't usually do," she told reporters.

Meloni criticizes the double discourse of the France

Specifying that she had spoken with Emmanuel Macron the day before the statements of the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin questioning his management of immigration, Giorgia Meloni said that there was clearly a difference between the discourse that the France held "in private and in public". "It makes me think that this is a matter of French domestic politics," she commented.

The head of Italian diplomacy, Antonio Tajani, had already demanded Friday an apology from Gerald Darmanin, whose remarks on the inability of Giorgia Meloni to manage immigration have caused a new crisis between Rome and Paris, which has since tried to calm the game. The minister had even canceled Thursday evening his first visit to Paris, where he was to meet his counterpart Catherine Colonna, after the statements of Gerald Darmanin accusing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of being "unable to solve the migration problems on which she was elected".

To de-mine the situation, Catherine Colonna quickly published a message in Italian on Twitter, saying that "the relationship between Italy and France is based on mutual respect." She called Antonio Tajani.

An outbreak of fever in November

Immigration has been an ultra-sensitive issue in Franco-Italian relations for years. In November, the two countries experienced a feverish outbreak when the Meloni government, barely in power, refused to let dock a humanitarian ship of the NGO SOS Méditerranée that was eventually welcomed by the France in Toulon with more than 200 migrants on board. The episode had aroused the anger of Paris, which had convened a European meeting so that this unprecedented scenario would not happen again.

Since then, the number of clandestine crossings by boat has increased. According to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 42,000 people have arrived via the Mediterranean in Italy this year compared to about 11,000 over the same period in 2022. Nearly half of them come from French-speaking countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Tunisia, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mali.

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