Ambassador Teresa Castaldo was summoned on Monday afternoon by the chief of staff of European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau, French diplomatic sources said.
Di Maio’s comment came after around 170 people drowned when the two makeshift rubber dinghies they were aboard sank last week.
Three survivors were rescued after one boat carrying 117 people sank off the coast of Libya while a second, believed to be carrying 53 people, sank in the western Mediterranean.
Di Maio accused Paris of hypocrisy and claimed France was contributing the migration crisis in Europe by continuing to run “de facto colonies” in Africa through the colonial-era CFA franc currency.
“There are countries, like France, which in Africa continue to have de facto colonies, with the franc as currency, ‘money’ that it is used to finance its public debt weakening the economies of those countries where migrants come from,” the leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) told Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano.
He added that France was manipulating the economies of 14 western and central African countries that use the CFA franc.
France claims that the currency has brought monetary stability to the countries that use it.
Anti-CFA activists argue the use of the currency grants France an unreasonable level of control over their economies, is responsible for limiting job creation and growth, and is a harsh reflection of the colonial era.
Tension between Rome and Paris has built since the Italy’s new populist government was sworn in last year.
Since then, the neighbouring nations have clashed on several issues, the most pressing being immigration.
