- France has decided to reinforce border controls following a diplomatic row with Italy about migration policy and humanitarian rescue ships, which is showing no signs of ending
- In retaliation for Italy’s delays in helping humanitarian ships that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean, this week France said it was sending 500 extra officers to the border with its neighbors
- Italy’s new government headed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pledged that the country will no longer be the main port of entry for migrants leaving on smugglers’ boats from Libya
PARIS, France: France has decided to reinforce border controls following a diplomatic row with Italy about migration policy and humanitarian rescue ships, which is showing no signs of ending.
On November 13 at the Ventimiglia-Menton crossing on the Mediterranean coast, a flashpoint of the migrant issue with makeshift camps sheltering migrants trying to cross into France after arriving in Italy, several dozen migrants were sleeping on mattresses under a highway overpass.
In retaliation for Italy’s delays in helping humanitarian ships that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean, this week France said it was sending 500 extra officers to the border with its neighbors.
Italy’s new government headed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pledged that the country will no longer be the main port of entry for migrants leaving on smugglers’ boats from Libya, and has stressed that Europe must do more to regulate aid groups that operate rescue ships in the Mediterranean.
In response, France announced it was withdrawing from a European Union “solidarity” mechanism approved in June to relocate 3,000 migrants from Italy, a move called “disproportionate” and “aggressive” by Rome, which won the support of other front-line Mediterranean countries, including Greece, Malta and Cyprus.
While Italy stressed that it has already welcomed nearly 90,000 migrants this year, considerably more than any other European country, only a small number stay in the country.
Most continue their journeys to better established migrant communities in France, Germany, Sweden and other countries.
