By Christine HOLZBAUER, Paris.
Since January 8th, it is the guéguerre between France and Italy with little murderous phrases largely relayed by the media on both sides of the Alps. What fly so stung Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, the two vice-presidents of the Italian Council of Ministers, so that they decided to open a front of unprecedented attack against the French government?
Seen from Africa, we first looked, dumbfounded, French President Emmanuel Macron to be pounded by his Italian populist opponents accusing Paris of “impoverish Africa” and aggravate the migration crisis. Then it is the invocation of the CFA franc, a subject that is controversial today in many French-speaking African countries, which set fire to the powders triggering the convocation on 21 January at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris of the ambassador from Italy to France, Teresa Castaldo.
Words that annoy
First on the reserve, content with a few lines on “France is careful not to give lessons to Italy”, the Minister responsible for European Affairs, Nathalie Loiseau, eventually crack. Her chief of staff summoned the Italian ambassador in response to what Italian authorities said was “unacceptable” and “not applicable” remarks the day before. , the pikes of Luigi Di Maio asking the European Union to take “sanctions” against the countries which, beginning with France, are according to him at the origin of the tragedy of the migrants in the Mediterranean. “If today there are people leaving, it’s because some European countries, France in the lead, never stopped colonizing dozens of African countries,” insisted the political leader of the Movement 5 Stars (M5S, antisystem) who governs Italy since the victory in June 2018 of the Northern League of Matteo Salvini, now Minister of the Interior.
According to Luigi Di Maio, who is also Minister of Economic Development, Labor and Social Policies, “there are dozens of African countries where France prints a currency, the franc of the colonies and with this currency it finances the French public debt “. And to insist: “If France did not have the African colonies, because that’s the way to call them, it would be the 15th world economic power while it is among the first thanks to what she is doing in Africa, “he argued provoking the ire of the Quai d’Orsay. Even if, as Nathalie Loiseau once again said: “Our intention is not to play the stupidest one”.
French bashing
For most French commentators, not only the Italian populists have decided to organize the campaign of the European elections of May 29th by making France the “totem of spittle”, but there is also a higher election bid between the Liga del North of Salvini petty-bourgeois and conservative and Cinque Stelle movement of Di Maio close to the small and expensive people. “It is to whom will insult at best Paris and its representatives,” notes Christian Makarian, deputy director of the Express. “For the frustrated antisystem, he continues, Macron embodies the arrogance of the Eurocrat, an ever closer European Union, a tandem reinforced with Germany. This is confirmed by the treaty of cooperation and integration of Aachen, signed on January 22, leaving Italy aside.
A deterioration of relations that distresses Giuseppe Conte, the Italian president, because it risks isolating even more Italy. The latter does not belong to any of the two formations today in competition to dominate the coalition and is often called in “blue helmet” by the European authorities. His lenient remarks on “the historical friendship” of his country with France can not however make us forget that relations have deteriorated since 2015 and the massive arrival of migrants on the Italian coasts. François Hollande’s France had repeatedly promised his support to Italy, then led by Matteo Renzi, but without the words being followed by acts. Matteo Renzi had already had remonstrances against France, made partly responsible for his defeat in the legislative elections of May 2018 against the forces of Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini. If we add several economic disputes such as the hostile presence of Vivendi in Telecom Italia, Fincantieri’s desire to control the STX France shipyard and the very old Italian resentment against “French arrogance”, we have all the ingredients for that continues and intensifies the “French Bashing” to the Italian.
Fight against Françafrique L
Kemi Seba, the Beninese activist expelled from Senegal, finally gave the reasons for the frontal attack of the Minister Di Maio against the CFA franc and Françafrique. According to him, everything started from the assumption that African immigration would be much less if the African countries were not colonized and destabilized by France. “We thought it was necessary for the M5 to tackle problems at the root rather than just the consequences,” he said on his Facebook page on January 22. The same day, he revealed that he had been received in Rome in September 2018 at the offices of the M5 in the Italian Parliament to provide files on Françafrique and the CFA franc. “Unlike many other Italian political parties, the M5 understands that Africans do not come to Italy for love of pizza, but because they are constantly destabilized,” he writes.
The President of the NGO “Pan-African Emergencies” took the opportunity to announce the creation of the Pan-African Party Beninese (PPB). “To this end, we decided (whatever our disagreements) since September 2018, to form a COMMON FRONT against FRENCH and Western NEOCOLONIALISM in Africa,” he said. In passing a warning to President Macron: “This is only the first step of the institutional attacks that has just taken place,” he warns. Because “what African leaders are unable to do, other non-African leaders will do, under our leadership, until we ourselves power in our countries.”
