(Rome) French President Emmanuel Macron spoke on Tuesday in Rome with the head of the Italian government Giorgia Meloni, in the middle of the European debate on the migration issue.
The Head of State, who had received Mr.me Meloni in June in Paris, participated in the morning in the funeral of former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
The two leaders arrived together around 1:30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. Eastern time) at Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the council presidency in the Italian capital, an AFP photographer noted.
No press briefing was planned at this stage following their interview, those close to the two officials said.
Mr. Macron and Mr.me Meloni have recently multiplied declarations of appeasement and desire to act together to manage the flow of migrants after the arrival in a few days in mid-September of thousands of people on the small Italian island of Lampedusa, located 150 km from the Tunisian coasts in the Mediterranean.
“We cannot leave the Italians alone,” said Emmanuel Macron on Sunday evening on television. An outstretched hand that Mme Meloni immediately said “welcome with great interest”.
They will meet again on Friday in Malta on the occasion of the 10e summit of the southern countries of the European Union.
The number of arrivals in Italy on boats from North Africa has increased, with more than 133,000 migrants registered so far this year, compared to almost 70,000 for the same period in 2022.
The figures, however, have not yet surpassed those of 2016, when more than 181,000 people, many of them Syrians fleeing the war, reached Italy.
Relations between Paris and Rome were strained in November 2022, when Italy refused to welcome the humanitarian ship Ocean Viking and the 230 migrants on board, pushing Paris to let it dock in Toulon, while denouncing the behavior “unacceptable” from Rome.
Mme Meloni, head of the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, criticizes other European states for not doing their part in welcoming migrants, while Italy is on the front line.
At the invitation of the Italian leader, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Lampedusa and presented a ten-point emergency aid plan consisting of strengthening controls at sea, combating smugglers and to speed up the procedures for examining asylum applications.
In Rome, Emmanuel Macron attended the civil funeral of former Italian President (2006-2015) Giorgio Napolitano, historic leader of the Communist Party and promoter of European construction, who died on Friday at the age of 98.