Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday
blasted France's "aggressive" response in a row over the NGO-run
search-and-rescue ship the Ocean Viking.
"When there is talk of retaliation in EU dynamics, something is
not working," Meloni told a press conference.
"I was struck by the aggressive, incomprehensible, unjustifiable
reaction of the French government".
On Friday Paris allowed the Ocean Viking, which is run by French
NGO SOS Méditerranée, to dock in Toulon with 230 asylum seekers
on board after Rome ignored the ship's appeals to be assigned a
port of safety for weeks.
But French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that
Paris has suspended plans to take in 3,500 refugees currently in
Italy and called on "all the participants" in the EU's migrant
relocation mechanism to adopt similar measures.
Darmanin called on "Germany in particular" to suspend the
relocation of asylum seekers from Italy.
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