The tension started with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin saying Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was incapable of solving the migrant problems she had campaigned on, statements which prompted Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to cancel a trip to Paris to see Colonna.
Stéphane Séjourné, the secretary general of French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, then weighed in, saying Meloni does a lot of “rabble-rousing” on illegal immigration, and saying her policies were unjust and ineffective.
“Italy is faced with strong migratory pressure, which is essentially passing via the Mediterranean,” Colonna told Télématin.
“So we want to have good, if not better, cooperation with Italy because it is necessary to fight against these (migrant) flows, preventing departures.
“In truth we have a common interest with Italy to prevent departures and ask the countries that perhaps do not watch over their coasts enough to do more.
“And we can do it together, including via the European Union.”
Meloni met French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan as said the encounter “went as well as the previous meetings”.
ANSA
