"It is a gratuitous and vulgar insult to a friendly, allied country" and "when someone gratuitously offends another person the minimum is that he apologizes," said Antonio Tajani in an interview with the daily Il Corriere della Sera.

Tajani canceled Thursday evening his first visit to Paris, where he was to meet his counterpart Catherine Colonna, after Gérald Darmanin's statements on RMC accusing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of being "unable to solve the migration problems on which she was elected".

Catherine Colonna quickly published a message in Italian on Twitter, saying that "the relationship between Italy and France is based on mutual respect, between our two countries and between their leaders." She immediately called Mr. Tajani.

"Catherine Colonna called me twice, to tell me that she was sorry, she was very cordial," said Antonio Tajani, while considering that the explanations of Paris remained "insufficient".

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, April 18, 2023 in Karuizawa, Japan © Franck ROBICHON / POOL / AFP / Archives

"This is a cold attack, a stab in the back by a leading member of the French government. There are things that cannot be ignored. The rest of Macron's executive, however, certainly does not think like Darmanin," Tajani insisted.

Meloni's promises

Immigration has been an ultra-sensitive issue in Franco-Italian relations for years.

In November, the two countries experienced a surge of fever when the Meloni government, barely in power, refused to let dock a humanitarian ship of the NGO SOS Méditerranée which had ended up being welcomed by the France in Toulon (south) with more than 200 migrants on board.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, on April 5, 2023 in Rome © Andreas SOLARO / AFP/Archives

The episode had aroused the anger of Paris, which had convened a European meeting so that this unprecedented scenario would not happen again.

Since then, clandestine crossings by boat have increased with the rise of a new maritime corridor between Tunisia and Italy, on the front line at the gates of Europe.

According to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 42,000 people have arrived via the Mediterranean in Italy this year compared to about 11,000 over the same period in 2022.

Government spokesman Olivier Véran tried Friday to extinguish the fire, assuring that there had been "no desire to ostracize Italy".

"The Italians, we discuss, they love politics, but they assume the choices they have made and they want us to let them assume their choices," he explained, "and that's good because we do not intend to do otherwise."

Next to the coronation of Naples in Serie, the Italian press headlined Friday morning on this new quarrel between the two neighbors.

La Repubblica, a centre-left daily, evoked "the slap in the face of Paris", while La Stampa recalled that "the fight against illegal immigration had been one of Meloni's hobbyhorses during the electoral campaign" in the summer of 2022.

A humanitarian ship of the NGO SOS Méditerranée arrives in the port of Toulon, on November 11, 2022 in the south of the France © CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP/Archives

"With promises to set up a +naval blockade+ to prevent departures to the peninsula. But just arrived at Palazzo Chigi [seat of the head of government in Rome], the Prime Minister had to take note of the infeasibility of her project. And the French repented of having believed it," writes the Turin newspaper.

© 2023 AFP