Strong diplomatic crossing between France and Italy for yellow vests

France yesterday called on its ambbadador in Rome to protest a recent meeting between Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio and a group of "yellow vests" in Paris, an unprecedented escalation between two countries of the European Union (EU) that the fracture crystallizes in the Old Continent three months after the European elections. This is the third bilateral diplomatic friction between these two neighboring and founding EU countries in less than a year. "This latest interference is an additional and unacceptable provocation," said the French Foreign Ministry in a statement issued at the end of this week's meeting by Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S).

For its part, Di Maio defended yesterday that his meeting with a group of "yellow vests" is "legitimate" and called for dialogue with the French government.

In June of last year, Italy summoned the French ambbadador to Rome to protest France's critics that the Italian government had refused to allow the landing of 39, a ship that saved 600 shipwrecked migrants in the Mediterranean. A spokesman for French President Emmanuel Macron on this occasion accused the Italian government of "cynical and irresponsible", to which Rome replied that he did not accept the "hypocrites lessons" of 39, a country that had not shown much willingness to receive migrants its territory.

The new crisis erupted after the meeting between Di Maio and the spokesman for "yellow vests" Christophe Chalencon and Ingrid Levavbadeur, promoter of a platform with which some members of the movement aspire to accede to the European Parliament during the elections of 23 and 26 May.

The movement of "yellow vests", born in the heart of soaring fuel prices in France, has the Macron government in check and has become an increasingly large collective claiming its fiscal policy. .