Meloni laments France’s “aggressive response” to the migrant crisis Which races are still open? What’s next? An overview of the midterms

The rescue ship “Ocean Viking” with 230 migrants on board has arrived in the military port of the southern French city of Toulon. A spokeswoman for the SOS Méditerranée organization of the German news agency confirmed this on Friday morning. According to SOS Méditerranée, some of the rescued had been on the ship for more than two weeks.

France wants to take a third of the migrants on board. According to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, Germany has also agreed to take in a third of the refugees. There are offers for admission from other countries such as Croatia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Norway.

France had allowed the rescue ship to enter the military port of Toulon on Thursday after rescuers and rescuers waited unsuccessfully for days for a port assignment in Italy.

French Interior Minister Darmanin condemned the behavior of Italy, which, contrary to international rules, had refused to let the ship enter an Italian port. Rome’s actions put a strain on the relationship between the two countries.

“Should Italy be the only country to provide ports for migrants?”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is surprised at the sharp tones from Paris in the migrant crisis. “I was struck by the aggressive response of the French government, which I found incomprehensible and unjustified,” Meloni said on Friday. From the point of view of the far-right and anti-immigrant politician, the situation in this case is distorted. She said that “for the first time ever such an NGO ship docks in France”. She couldn’t understand the excitement in Paris because of the approximately 230 people on the ship, as “nearly 90,000 migrants had reached Italy since the beginning of the year”.

In addition, the new head of government recalled an early summer European agreement, according to which about 8,000 migrants who have landed in Italy are to be distributed to other countries. However, so far only 117 people have been taken to another country, only 38 to France. “Something isn’t working here,” Meloni said. “Should Italy be the only country to provide ports for migrants?”

»The party leader of the radical right-wing Fratelli d’Italia also criticized her country’s lack of solidarity in Europe. She pointed out that within a short time Germany had agreed to take over a third of the people of the “Ocean Viking”. Italy has never been helped so quickly by EU partners in this area.

French Secretary of State for Europe Laurence Boone spoke on Friday about Italy’s breach of confidence across Europe. Italy did not comply with the applicable rules and put human lives at risk with a unilateral decision. “You can question whether people’s lives are being exploited,” Boone says. There were agreements that went beyond the existence of a government. “Imagine what it would be like to change European rules in every government. That wouldn’t be sustainable,” she says.

(lst/yam/sda/dpa)