The French have revealed yet again their shameless hypocrisy in regard to Europe’s illegal migrants crisis that this year looks set to break all records.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, keen to divert attention from the riots that characterise France on his watch, managed to tell three lies in a single sentence last week (Thursday) about Italy’s new prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

Emanuel Macron’s right-hand man told Radio Monte Carlo: ‘Madame Meloni, a far-right government chosen by Madame Le Pen’s friends, is incapable of solving the migration problems on which she was elected.’

His remarks prompted Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister, who said they were ‘unacceptable’, to cancel a meeting that same day with French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, to discuss among other things the migrant crisis.

You would have thought that the European Union which is founded on the free movement of goods and people within its borders would treat as a cardinal principle the necessity to move as one to protect the collective frontier. No chance. Especially not if the French are involved.

From the top…
1) Meloni’s government is not far right but centre right. Whether it can also become, as she wants, a genuine conservative party, given that Italy has never had such a thing, remains to be seen. But I challenge anyone to provide one single example of a far right policy implemented by Meloni since her election six months ago.

2) Meloni’s government was not chosen by ‘Madame Le Pen’s friends’ but by the Italian people. Meloni’s and Le Pen’s parties are not even allies in the European Parliament. Whereas Meloni has been Europe’s most strident supporter of arms to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, Le Pen is anything but, having had close relations with Vladimir Putin. On welfare, and state intervention, Meloni is conservative, Le Pen socialist.

3) Meloni is not ‘incapable of solving the migration problems on which she was elected’. That remains to be seen.

True, since Italy’s first woman prime minister’s election seven months ago the migrant crisis in the central Mediterranean has grown exponentially worse. But that is not her fault.

Furthermore, since coming to power, she has been steadfastly trying to create a consensus among EU leaders that a unified response is needed to the crisis.

Italy cannot do it alone, she says.

It cannot stop the migrant boats from departing alone. Nor can it take in all migrants who arrive alone.

Europe must share the burden. Though the EU has yet to decide anything concrete, there are signs that her views will prevail as the crisis gets worse as it will with summer. Regardless of the French.

You would have thought that the European Union which is founded on the free movement of goods and people within its borders would treat as a cardinal principle the necessity to move as one to protect the collective frontier

This year looks set to break all records.

In Libya, the traditional departure point, there are currently 650,000 migrants ready to set off. In Tunisia, whose dictatorship is on the verge of collapse there are 900,000. Tunisia, a new departure point, is much closer to Italy.

Such figures dwarf even those of 2015 when then German Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed one million plus migrants into Germany by land from the Middle East.

Already this year, a record 42,000 migrants have arrived by sea in Italy – four times the number who arrived in the same period in 2022. Yet the summer migration season has yet to begin. Italy’s record year for migrant sea arrivals was 2016 when 181,436 arrived. Last year, there were 105,131.

So what does Darmanin from Macron’s wishy-washy French centre think Meloni should do about all this?

He of course has nothing constructive to say.

And so what does France do about its migrants with him in charge?

Easy. It pursues a good old, not in my back yard, nationalist policy which for progressive centrists and faithful Europeans such as him and Macron ought to be absolutely verboten indeed really rather embarrassing.

Down south, France packs the Italian border, on the Riviera, with police to catch and send back to Italy migrants crossing the border around Ventimiglia – often with the violence for which they are so famous. Last month, it sent another 150 officers to the border.

The average number of migrants French police round up and send back to Italy is 80 a day – roughly 2,500 a month.

Up north, meanwhile, in Pas de Calais, despite Britain paying France large amounts of money to stop the human trafficking – most recently £500 million in March – it more or less waves through the dozens that set off each day to cross the Channel.

Why on earth, I keep on wondering, can’t Britain just send back migrants to France in the same way as France sends them back to Italy?

Naturally, there is no sign of an apology to Meloni or Tajani from Darmanin or anyone else in the French government. The closest they have come was on Friday when, asked by journalists if France is going to apologise, French prime minister Élisabeth Borne replied: ‘I’d like to repeat that Italy is an essential partner of France, and that our relationship is founded on mutual respect. We will prioritise consultation and calm dialogue to continue to work together.’

I agree with the view of Augusto Minzolini, editor of the right-wing Il Giornale, about Monsieur Darmanin:

‘The paradox is that the criticism comes from somebody who in recent months, while the boat arrivals have multiplied, has worried only about sending 150 French police to the border with Italy to bludgeon and send back clandestine migrants who have tried to cross the frontier, He who accuses the Italian government of not knowing how to manage the problem, could think of nothing but the most banal and egotistical measure, drenched with the worst kind of hypocrisy.

‘Following his logic, if the French coast was assaulted by boats as is the Italian coast, this transalpine genius in order to be coherent in his actions ought to throw them back in the sea. Instead, he does not practice what he preaches: he accuses Italy of incompetence, and worse, but meanwhile he does not move a finger to solve the problem except to repropose the same solution as Orban: close the frontiers.’

Close the frontiers of France of course.

And sod everyone else. Above all, Britain and Italy. But also the EU.<//>

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