The war of words between Rome and Paris is intensifying.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Friday there was no excuse for criticism of Italy̵7;s migration policy on Thursday by French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. Tajani canceled a planned trip to Paris over the remarks.
“This attack leaves one stunned. It’s a clap of thunder in a quiet sky, a senseless insult,” Tajani Said In an interview with Corriere della Sera.
Darmanin, said Tajani, “enraged the government and all Italians apart from the prime minister”, adding the comments were “a stab in the back by a prominent member of the French government.”
Italian Foreign Minister was called working dinner with his French counterpart Catherine Colonna on Thursday – just hours before their scheduled meeting in Paris.
Darmanin earlier on Thursday Said RMC radioed that the “far-right” Italian government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was “incapable of solving migration problems”.
Before Tajani canceled his trip, the French Foreign Ministry tried to douse the fire by issuing a statement emphasis That Paris wants to work with Rome “in a spirit of solidarity” on the management of migration flows in the Mediterranean.
But the French statement “was not enough,” Tajani said in an interview with Corriere della Sera. “There are no excuses – even though one notes both the discontent and the embarrassment on the French side about what happened,” he said.
“We are a great country, democratic, with a millennia-old history and a founding member of the European Union,” Tajani said. “We demand respect – the same respect we hold for our allies.”
The dispute is the latest between the Italian and French governments.
Last November, Paris drew Meloni’s fury after it solidifies The EU plans to take in 3,500 refugees as part of the migrant-resettlement mechanism, and announced border reinforcements, after Italy redirected a migrant boat to dock in Toulon.
in February, melonie flared up EU leaders summit in Brussels, rebuked their French counterparts for not inviting them to a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris.
But relations appeared to be improving later that month, following a visit by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi to Darmanin in Paris in February, after the two governments announced they would run joint missions to the North African country.