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Why are France and Italy rowing over migrants and what are the consequences?

French-Italian relations soured this week amid a row over migrant rescues, with the two countries accusing each other of "incomprehensible" behaviour. Here's a look at what it all means.

Published: 11 November 2022 11:52 CET
Why are France and Italy rowing over migrants and what are the consequences?
A migrant child plays in a cardboard box with the inscription "France" aboard the Ocean Viking rescue ship on November 10th, 2022. France accepted the ship after Italy refused to allow it to dock.(Photo by Vincenzo Circosta / AFP)

A row between France and Italy escalated further on Friday morning, as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni slammed what she called the French government’s “incomprehensible and unjustified” response to taking in a migrant rescue vessel rejected by Rome.

France had warned Italy of  “severe consequences” on Thursday after it accepted the Ocean Viking rescue ship carrying 234 migrants amid a blazing row over which country is responsible for them.

France has never before allowed a rescue vessel carrying migrants from the Mediterranean to land on its coast, but did so this time because Italy had refused access.

Italian leaders had on Wednesday claimed that France was ready to accept the ship – leading to suggestions that Italy’s government had tried to force France into accepting the rescue ship by announcing a deal when there wasn’t one.

Paris immediately hit back, saying on Thursday it would accept the ship but would suspend another deal to take thousands of migrants from Italy.

How did this start?

The Ocean Viking ship had initially sought access to Italy’s coast, closest to where the migrants were picked up, saying health and sanitary conditions onboard were rapidly worsening.

Italy refused, saying other nations must take in more of the thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa every year.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin slammed Italy’s stance as “incomprehensible”, saying the Ocean Viking “is located without any doubt in Italy’s search and rescue zone”.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Thursday the Ocean Viking could dock at the port of Toulon and a third of the migrant passengers will be “relocated” to France. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

He slammed Italian authorities for “making the migrants wait at sea for 15 days”.

Later on Thursday and again on Friday, the Italian government also used the word “incomprehensible” to describe France’s response to allowing a migrant ship to disembark in a French port.

What’s behind Italy’s policy?

Italy’s refusal this week to allow migrants to disembark is a move that will please the new government’s far-right, Eurosceptic support base, and is thought also to be intended to force other countries to accept changes Italy wants to make to the EU-wide policy on accepting and distributing asylum seekers between member states.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said this week that the government was sending a “signal” to other EU nations that international law must change.

READ ALSO: Anger as Italy accused of illegally rejecting migrants rescued at sea

Under international law, ships in distress or carrying rescued passengers must be allow entry in the nearest port of call – which means Italy and often Malta must take in those rescued after trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya.

In June, around a dozen EU countries, including France, agreed to take in migrants who arrive in Italy and other main entry points.

People on the deck of the Ocean Viking rescue ship in the Gulf of Catania in the Mediterranean Sea in international waters on November 6th, 2022. (Photo by VINCENZO CIRCOSTA / AFP)

Rome wants “an agreement to establish, on the basis of population, how migrants with a right to asylum are relocated to various countries”, Tajani said ahead of a meeting of EU ministers next week.

But commentators said Italy’s tactic of apparently forcing France to take the ship could easily backfire.

The hardline policy is led by Meloni – the leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, who once said Italy should “repatriate migrants back to their countries and then sink the boats that rescued them” – and anti-immigrant League leader Matteo Salvini, known for his policy of closing Italian ports to rescue ships as interior minister in 2019.

Their hardline stance is expected to lead to strained ties that complicate decision-making on a range of subjects at the EU level.

“We’re seeing diplomatic arm-wrestling between France and Italy that could open a breach for similar conflicts, because Italy is clearly challenging a European accord (on migrants) that was in its favour,” Matthieu Tardis of the French Institute for International Relations told AFP.

How has France reacted?

Darmanin on Thursday warned of  “severe consequences” for Italy’s bilateral relations with France and the EU as a whole, and said Italy’s refusal to accept the migrants was “incomprehensible”.

He said France had acted according to its “humanitarian duty”, but the migrants were Italy’s responsibility under EU rules, and that the French move was an “exceptional” measure that would not guide future action.

What are the consequences?

The row has gone beyond a war of words as France has suspended a plan to take in 3,500 refugees currently in Italy under a European accord and urged Germany and other EU nations to do the same.

French police said on Friday it had also reinforced controls at Italian border crossings.

The flare-up of tensions echoes European migrant disputes four years ago, when French President Emmanuel Macron in particular clashed with Italy’s anti-immigrant interior minister Matteo Salvini.

Salvini, now back in government as infrastructure minister – meaning he has control of Italy’s ports – has again pledged to follow a hard line on preventing migrant arrivals.

The row over migrants marks a return to fractured relations between France and Italy after previous cooperation under Mario Draghi’s government.

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JOHN LICHFIELD

OPINION: There is no chance of a sensible debate on the French government’s immigration bill

Immigration - like pensions - is a subject which in France anaesthetises balance and common-sense, writes John Lichfield, which explains why the government's new immigration bill is becoming virtually the new definition of a mountain out of a molehill.

Published: 30 May 2023 14:10 CEST
OPINION: There is no chance of a sensible debate on the French government's immigration bill

France has changed its migration law 29 times in the last 40 years. There has been no significant change since 2018. A spasm of tinkering is evidently overdue.

The government thinks so – or at least some of the time. It proposed a new migration law last year. Since then, the draft law has frequently been delayed.

It was sawn in half and then sown back together again. There have been seven changes of direction in nine months.

Language tests and easier expulsion: The latest on France’s new immigration law

President Emmanuel Macron, against the wishes of his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, has now decided to push forward rapidly with the new legislation. He wants to prove that, despite the national nervous breakdown over pension reform, despite the loss of his parliamentary majority, his government can still advance its domestic agenda.

Hear John and the team at The Local discussing the immigration bill, and its political fallout, in the latest episode of Talking France. Listen here or on the link below

Is there an urgent need for change? Yes and no. Mostly no.

Despite the nonsense spouted by the Far Right and the Right, France is not being “swamped” by migrants. Net migration is under 200,000 people a year. That figures has increased only slightly over the last decade.

Just over one in ten French residents were born in other countries – 30 percent of them within the European Union – compared to one in 20 in 1947. When asked which problems concern them the most, French people put migration 12th on their list – long after inflation, security, education, housing and health.

On the other hand, France does have a problem enforcing its migration rules.

A Paris schoolgirl was murdered last October by a woman who had been ordered to leave the country but was never removed. Most of the 234 African and middle eastern boat people delivered to Toulon in November by the Ocean Viking humanitarian vessel vanished before they could be processed by the French system.

Few of the illegal migrants or failed asylum seekers expelled from France actually leave the country. The government has little way of knowing whether the 120,000 people each year who are served with expulsion orders or OQTF’s (obligations de quitter le territoire français) have left or not.

READ ALSO OQTF: What is the notice to quit and can you appeal?

The proposed new migration law tries to address this issue. It would reduce from 12 to four the number of legal arguments that can be put forward to delay or cancel an expulsion order.

Everyone served with an OQRF would be inscribed on a computer file. It would create a new network of regional centres to process asylum requests.

The original bill was framed to appeal to both Right and Left – which made it sensibly balanced or wishy-washy Macronist, depending on your political persuasion. It would allow some illegal migrants and unprocessed asylum-seekers to contribute to the French economy by taking jobs.

Those eligible would include illegal migrants and asylum seekers who have been present in France for three years. They would be permitted to seek work permits in trades where labour is scarce – especially the restaurant and construction industries.

Originally, Macron and his interior minister Gérald Darmanin hoped that the bill would attract support from both the moderate left and the centre-right. The ill-feeling generated by the pension dispute now means that no left-wing support is conceivable.

All therefore depends on the 62 centre-right Les Républicains deputies who hold the balance of power in the National Assembly. They split on pension reform. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne warned Macron last month that they were equally divided and unreliable on the migration bill.

The President agreed to delay the debate until the autumn and then changed his mind. He needed – or wanted – an early parliamentary success on a contentious issue to prove that he was still able to govern, and reform, the country.

That was a mistake.

The leaders of Les Républicains (LR) have rejected the Macron migration bill. They have ruled out all possibility of voting to give some illegal migrants work-permits.

They have announced – but not yet published – an immigration bill of their own which steals the ideas of, inter alia, Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, Donald Trump and the British Conservative government.

Amongst other things, they want to abolish the 25-years-old rights rights of illegal migrants to seek free health care in France (which takes just 0.5 percent of health spending). And they want to stop the “deep state” (ie French and European officials and judges) from protecting migrant rights.

The once pro-European centre-right party says that it wants a referendum on constitutional change to allow France to “take back control” and disobey EU laws when its national interests are threatened. This is a photocopy of Marine Le Pen’s idea which amounts to an unworkable Frexit-in-all-but-name.

None of this has a remote chance of being agreed while Macron is President. It is a) declaration that the failing LR intends to lurch to the hard right before the next presidential election b) a suicide note by what remains of the once broad Gaullist movement.

After nailing their colours to this illiberal mast, there is no chance that Les Républicains will provide the 40 or so votes needed for the Macron migration bill to pass in its present form. Darmanin, the interior minister, is looking for some form of compromise but cannot go too far without alienating parts of Macron’s own centrist alliance.

The sensible idea of jobs-for-deserving-migrants may be split from the bill (again) and carried out regionally by administrative order. The government may offer some small restrictions on health care for illegal migrants and asylum seekers.

Will that bring the LR aboard? I doubt it.

Will the government risk another explosion by using its special powers to impose the law under Article 49.3 of the Constitution? I doubt it.

Will Macron back down and withdraw the bill (again)? I doubt it.

Will immigration replace pensions as the dominant political psycho-drama? I doubt it.

There may have been case for more tinkering with migration law but this was not the time to insist on it. Macron should have concentrated his efforts on more consensual reforms like his seven-year increase in defence spending and the proposed “green” industry law.

Immigration, like pensions, is a subject which anaesthetises balance and practical common-sense.

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