A border crossing of the French police has triggered new diplomatic upsets between Italy and France. It was an "insult without equal" that French police had returned illegally arrived refugees to Italy, wrote Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in the short message service Twitter. His government would "accept no excuses" for the incident.
A team car of the French gendarmerie had crossed the Italian border last Friday and brought several illegally arrived refugees to the Italian town of Claviere. The prefecture of the French border department of Hautes-Alpes had presented the incident on Monday as a "mistake" whose background still needs to be clarified.
"Removing immigrants in an Italian forest can not be considered a mistake or incident," wrote Salvini. It was an "international disgrace" that French President Emmanuel Macron could not "pretend that nothing had happened".
Abbandonare immigrati in un bosco italiano non può essere considerato un errore.
Quanto successo a #Clavier è un '# offesa senza precedenti nei confronti del nostro Paese.
È una #vergogna internazionale, e il signor #Macron non può far finta di nulla.
Non accettiamo le scuse. pic.twitter.com/VBjAbRcLr9
Later Salvini demanded that Paris "immediately" communicate the names, nationalities and dates of birth of the refugees concerned. For the comment Salvini posted a photo on Twitter, which showed Macron with bright red face.
Non ci interessano le giustificazioni, peraltro ridicole, né le indagini internal avviate dai francesi.
Parigi deve comunicarci IMMEDIATAMENTE le identità degli immigrati lasciati nei boschi.
Nomi, cognomi, nazionalità, date di nascita. pic.twitter.com/a8SjJyH5QL
For years refugees have been intercepted and rejected at the Italian-French border. Since the arrival of the new right-wing populist government in Rome, relations between the two countries have worsened. Since then, Italy regularly accuses France of abandoning Rome in the refugee issue. In June, the Italian government summoned the French ambassador after France had criticized Italy's refusal to let a refugee ship enter a port.