By Crispian Balmer and John Irish
ROME/PARIS (Reuters) -Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called off a trip to Paris on Thursday, saying the French interior minister had insulted Italy with comments that were highly critical of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The French minister, Gerald Darmanin, had earlier told RMC radio that Meloni was “unable to solve the migration problems on which she was elected” and accused her of “lying” to voters that she could end a crisis over growing numbers of boat migrants.
News of his comments came as Tajani was preparing to fly to Paris to see his French counterpart – a trip that was aimed partly at improving relations between the two European Union countries that have grown increasingly brittle.
France swiftly issued a statement in which it sought to reassure Rome of its willingness to work closely with Italy, but it was not enough to persuade Tajani to catch his plane.
“The insults to the government and Italy uttered by the minister @GDarmanin are unacceptable. This is not the spirit in which common European challenges should be addressed,” Tajani wrote on Twitter.
It was the latest in a series of clashes between Paris and Rome since Meloni took office last October at the head of a nationalist, conservative government which has a very different world vision to that of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Darmanin is very close to Macron and lashed out at Rome last November, accusing Meloni’s government of being “selfish” for refusing to let a charity rescue ship dock in France, forcing it instead to head to France.
Italy has seen a surge in migrant arrivals since Meloni won power last year. More than 42,400 people have landed in Italy so far in 2023, against around 11,220 in the same period last year.
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party and its coalition partner, the League, pledged a tough crackdown on illegal migrant entries in last year’s election campaign and on Thursday parliament approved a law that toughened prison terms for human traffickers and reduced asylum rights for new arrivals.
Darmanin compared Meloni to the far-right French leader Marine Le Pen, a political foe of Macron. “The extreme right has a vice. That of lying to the population,” he said.
In a subsequent statement, the French government said ties between the two nations were “based on mutual respect”.
“It is also in a spirit of solidarity that the French government wishes to work with Italy to face the common challenge of rapidly increasing migratory flows, particularly from the central Mediterranean,” it added.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante and Crispian Balmer in Rome and John Irish and Tassilo Hummel in Paris, editing by Mark Heinrich, Nick Macfie and Christina Fincher)
