Immigration continues to sow discord between France and Italy. After the tension of the last few months over the Ocean Viking affair and the distribution of refugees between France and Italy, the animosity between the two has returned, following the declaration of French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who considers the Italian prime minister “incapable of solving the migration problems” of her country. In retaliation, the Italian minister of foreign affairs cancelled his visit to Paris.
On Thursday, May 4th, Gérald Darmanin directly attacked Giorgia Meloni during an interview on the French radio station RMC, judging her incapable of managing the issue of immigration in Italy. He recalled the influx of migrants to the Italian peninsula due to the deteriorating political situation in Tunisia, and the inability of the Italian authorities to cope: “The truth is that there is a political situation in Tunisia, which means that many children in particular are coming up through Italy and that Italy is unable to manage this migratory pressure,” he explained. This phenomenon has direct consequences for France, namely the massive arrival of migrants, especially minors, to the south of France.
According to the Italian ministry of the interior, more than 36,000 people have arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean this year, compared to around 9,000 during the same period in 2022. As a result, the first quarter of 2023 was the deadliest for migrants in the Mediterranean since 2017, according to figures provided by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration.
Gérald Darmanin drew a parallel between Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen, saying what the two right-wing women have in common is the that they make grand statements which they are unable to translate into action: “Meloni is like Le Pen, she gets elected on ‘you’ll see what you’ll see’ and then what we see is that it [immigration] doesn’t stop, and that it’s growing.”
Darmanin’s statements, which are typical for him, caused an outcry in Italy. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani expressed his indignation by abandoning a planned trip to Paris to meet his counterpart Catherine Colonna: “I will not go to Paris for the planned meeting with the French foreign minister Catherine Colonna. The offences against the government and Italy made by Mr. Darmanin are unacceptable. This is not the spirit with which we should face common European challenges,” he explained on Twitter.
Trajani thus echoes the line defended energetically by Meloni: that the migration problem is European, and its resolution cannot be left to Italy alone.
However, in France, the criticism of the weakness of Giorgia Meloni’s migration policy is not limited to Darmanin. The sovereignist magazine Front Populaire recently published a critical assessment of the Italian prime minister’s action on the subject, judging it “not very much in line with her campaign promises.”
