France and Italy are launching a project to exchange information on migrant trafficking

PARIS (Reuters) – The interior ministers of France and Italy have signed a declaration on their intention to exchange information related to migrant trafficking, the French Interior Ministry said on Friday.

The project will be modeled on a similar agreement between France and Britain, which was launched in northern France in 2020 in an attempt to stop attempts to reach the United Kingdom.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

France’s new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, a law-and-order politician from the conservative Republican Party (LR), said his priority was to further tighten immigration laws, echoing the prime minister’s comments that said the country needs to better control its borders. .

Immigration is also a tense domestic issue in Italy, where far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has promised to drastically limit immigration, but that has not yet been successful.

KEY QUOTES

“The aim is clear: to initiate judicial investigations, often combined, aimed at dismantling the networks underlying the illicit flow through Italy to the rest of the European Union, in which France remains a sought-after destination,” the French Interior Ministry said in a statement. a statement.

CONTEXT

In November 2022, tensions flared between France and Italy after Italy refused to allow a charity ship carrying migrants to dock, forcing it to sail to a port in southern France.

The countries share a 500 km (300 mi) land border, which runs mainly through the Alps. Both countries are in the EU’s Schengen area and there are no mutual border controls, although individual countries are responsible for asylum seekers arriving there.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Tassilo Hummel and Peter Graff)