Stéphane Séjourné, the secretary
general of French President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party,
was quoted by daily newspaper Le Figaro on Wednesday as calling
the migration policies of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni's
government "inhuman".
"The French far right takes the Italian far right as a model,"
Séjourné, an MEP, was quoted as saying.
"It is necessary to denounce their incompetence and their
impotence.
"Meloni does lots of rabble-rousing on illegal immigration: her
policies are unjust, inhuman and ineffective".
The statement comes on the back of a recent diplomatic spat
between Italy and France that arose after Interior Minister
Gérald Darmanin said Meloni was incapable of solving the migrant
problems she had campaigned on.
Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani subsequently
cancelled a trip to Paris to see his counterpart Catherine
Colonna in protest at the attack.
Tajani had said on Friday that Paris appeared to have realized
the gravity of the minister's claims after a French government
spokesman denied any wish to ostracise Italy.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also called for "peaceful
dialogue" with Italy.
It was a fresh migrant spat between the two countries after a
clash over an NGO run migrant boat that ended up in France last
November.
Italy has seen a big increase in the number of migrants and
refugees arriving via sea from North Africa this year.
Rome has been calling on the European Union to do more to share
out the burden of migrant flows between member States and to
protect the EU's external border.
Meloni's government has also passed legislation to regulate the
activities of NGO-run migrant rescue ships operating in the
Mediterranean.
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