Italy lectures France on Africa

Italian leaders irk Paris by backing the Yellow Jackets and denouncing French colonialism

ANALYSIS | Hannah Roberts |  The 5Star Movement’s attempt to blame migrant deaths in the Mediterranean on Paris says more about the dire state of the Italian ruling coalition than the French colonial legacy in Africa.

Paris was already furious with Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio for supporting the Yellow Jackets protest movement. When he then linked French foreign policy to the drowning of about 170 migrants, a Franco-Italian diplomatic incident was inevitable — though France’s Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau has said she refuses to enter a “stupidity contest” with Rome.

Di Maio, co-leader of a governing coalition with the far-right League that has closed Italy’s ports to NGO boats carrying rescued migrants, said the root cause of the tragedy is poverty in countries that “use French currency and pay for the French deficit.”

“This is a colonialism that has never finished,” said the leader of the 5Stars.

The sight of Italy’s ambassador to Paris being summoned to the foreign ministry to explain did little to dissuade League leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini — who enjoys few things more than baiting French President Emmanuel Macron — from joining in a few days later. “The migrant problem has many causes,” he said. “In Africa, some take away wealth from the people and the Continent. France is certainly among them. Italy isn’t.”

The Italian opposition dismissed Di Maio and Salvini’s comments about French foreign policy as “lies” and “propaganda” driven by internal coalition rivalry and an attempt by the 5Stars to upstage the League, which has long dominated the migration issue with its hard-line stance.

But while the 5Stars are known for supporting wacky conspiracy theories, this looked like a calculated attempt to win back votes from the populist right and left fringes ahead of May’s election for the European Parliament. Sliding support for the 5Stars was highlighted by a recent election in Sardinia, in which their share of the vote fell to 29 percent from 42 percent.

That impression was reinforced by support for the anti-French outbursts from Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who said it is “legitimate to question the effectiveness of our foreign policies,” and Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi.

Gaddafi’s gold

Di Maio was alluding to the CFA franc, two currencies used mainly by former French colonies in Africa that are pegged to the euro, with the financial backing of the French treasury. In exchange, the French treasury holds half the foreign currency of these 14 countries, which critics say hinders economic development.

Vito Petrocelli, the 5Star president of the Italian Senate’s foreign affairs committee, attempted to explain the rationale behind Di Maio’s comments by referring to U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks.

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was plotting to replace the CFA franc with a pan-African currency backed by Libyan gold, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2011. The invasion of Libya by Western allies put an end to that plan and destabilised the country, contributing to the migration chaos whose consequences have been mainly borne by Italy, he said.

“Luigi Di Maio had the courage to lift the veil of hypocrisy which hid the scandalous system of the CFA franc,” said Petrocelli.

In reality, most migrants who arrive in Italy originate from countries such as Tunisia and Eritrea that don’t use the CFA franc. Among the top 10 countries of origin for refugees arriving by sea in Italy in 2018, Ivory Coast is the first country using the CFA franc to appear, at No. 8, according to UNHCR figures.

Godwin Chukwu, founder of the Federation of the African Diaspora in Italy, said Italy should remember its own colonial past in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Libya, adding: “Di Maio and Salvini cannot give lessons to France.”

Chukwu cited Di Maio’s promise to Italian voters that foreigners would not be eligible for the 5Stars’ flagship campaign promise of a basic citizens’ income. “Africa is here in Italy but the minister cares nothing for these poor people,” he said.

For Raffaele Marchetti, professor of international relations at Rome’s Luiss University, the diplomatic spat between Rome and Paris is the result of long-term economic and military frictions between Italy and France that have been exacerbated by the immigration crisis.

On top of that, inflammatory language attracts votes, and ahead of May’s European election the 5Stars are keen to burnish their anti-establishment credentials by taking a pop at capitalist institutions to win support from the left and take a hard stance on migration to gain favor with the right.

“Show voters you are dealing with migration and you will be rewarded,” said Marchetti.

Karaoke night

With the 5Stars looking for potential allies in the European Parliament after the May election, attacking France’s Africa policy is also a way of reaching out to the Yellow Jackets by showing a shared agenda: abolishing the CFA franc is one of the activists’ demands.

Standing up to the French will also go down well with the domestic audience, said 5Star activist Massimo Lazzari. Di Maio “is trying to get back some votes we have lost,” he said, adding that Italy has been too acquiescent with the major European powers in the past.

“We have to defend ourselves. France treats Italy as a colony, economically and illegally sending back child migrants. Previous governments allowed this to happen. We push back,” said Lazzari.

“These comments will increase divisions with France and leave Italy more marginalized” — Raffaele Marchetti

While there may be short-term electoral gains, opposition parties point out the danger of running foreign policy like an election campaign. The situation is “getting out of hand,” said former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi from the center-left Democratic Party: ‘The damage to the credibility of Italy and its relations with its historic friends is huge. Foreign policy is serious, it’s not amateur karaoke.”

Alessandro Alfieri, a Democratic Party senator on the foreign affairs committee, pointed out that France had supported Italy against the threat of EU sanctions over the 2019 budget. “We are witnessing a radical change in foreign policy, which betrays our national interests,” he warned.

Long term, such attacks are likely to leave Italy more isolated in Europe. “These comments will increase divisions with France and leave Italy more marginalized,” said Marchetti at Luiss University.