A barrage of vitriolic comments levelled at France and its president have pushed Franco-Italian relations to the brink as Italy’s ruling populist parties kick off their European election campaign with no holds barred, reports FRANCE 24.
The last time Emmanuel Macron paid a visit to the Italian government in Rome, in January 2018, it was all smiles, hugs and warm words between the French president and Italy’s then-prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni. The announcement of a treaty cementing Franco-Italian friendship, to be signed by the end of the year, provided the cherry on the cake.
France’s ties with Italy are “neither in competition with, nor inferior to” the close partnership it enjoys with Germany, the French president told a press conference at the time. The forthcoming Quirinal Treaty, Macron added, would be “complementary” with the Elysée Treaty signed by France and Germany back in 1963.
Twelve months on, the French leader has just signed a whole new agreement further deepening his country’s relationship with Germany, but the Quirinal Treaty – named after the Italian president’s Roman residence – is nowhere to be seen. In fact, Paris and Rome now can barely talk to each other without invective, let alone sign a special partnership.
To suggest relations between the two countries have hit rock bottom would be “premature”, says Pierangelo Isernia, a professor of political science at the University of Siena. “With the current Italian government, things can get a whole lot worse,” he told FRANCE 24. “We better get used to it.”
Officials in Paris have been getting used to the radical change of tone ushered in by the new populist and increasingly Eurosceptic government in Rome, generally greeting its provocations with a shrug and a sigh. But when Italy’s deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, accused France of continuing to colonise Africa in a series of incendiary comments on Sunday, the provocation had gone too far for the French government, which summoned Italy’s ambassador in protest.
Di Maio, the leader of the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement, had called on the EU to “sanction France and all countries like France that impoverish Africa and make these people leave, because Africans should be in Africa, not at the bottom of the Mediterranean". He added: "If people are leaving today it's because European countries, France above all, have never stopped colonising dozens of African countries."
The deputy PM was unrepentant in later comments, made after the ambassador had been summoned on Monday, describing France as “one of these countries which, because it prints the currency of 14 African countries, hampers development and contributes to the departure of refugees” – a reference to a colonial-era currency that is still underpinned by the French Treasury.
In what has become a recurrent game of one-upmanship, Italy’s other deputy prime minister, the far-right Lega leader Matteo Salvini, soon added his thoughts on the matter, claiming France was looking to extract wealth from Africa rather than helping countries develop their own economies.
"In Libya, France has no interest in stabilising the situation, probably because it has oil interests that are opposed to those of Italy," Salvini told Italian TV late on Monday. In a Facebook post the next day, he added: "I hope that the French will be able to free themselves from a terrible president."
The gravity of the accusations levelled at France, a neighbour and ally that is also Italy’s second most important trade partner, has shocked many Italian observers and embarrassed top officials, including President Sergio Mattarella and his prime minister, Giuseppe Conte.