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France's Le Drian Says Ambassador Back in Rome Soon After Row

France's Le Drian Says Ambassador Back in Rome Soon After Row

(Bloomberg) -- France made a peace offering in a dispute with Italian populist leaders, saying it would soon send its ambassador back to Rome after what Paris saw as meddling in internal affairs.

“Today, I can tell you that the return of our ambassador will happen very soon,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The two neighbors have been “friends and allies for a long time,” he added.

France's Le Drian Says Ambassador Back in Rome Soon After Row

A visit to France by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio to meet members of the Yellow Vests protest movement prompted France to recall its ambassador back to Paris for consultations last week, a postwar low in bilateral relations. Fellow Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini has, like Di Maio, repeatedly attacked French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of May’s European Parliament elections.

“France has been the object for several months of repeated attacks and exaggerated accusations,” Le Drian said. But a phone conversation between Macron and President Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday had helped relations. “They share the same vision of this relationship which strengthens each of us and is a strong commitment,” Le Drian said.

Le Drian tackled some of the Franco-Italian issues which have yet to be resolved. On a $10 billion-euro Alpine rail link project, which has divided the Rome coalition, Le Drian said France is “very attentive to the calendar, to deadlines which condition European financing. Now the Italian government must take a decision quickly.”

Le Drian said France favors a proposed takeover by Italy’s Fincantieri SpA of Chantiers de l’Atlantique, which had led the European Commission to review the plan as a potential antitrust violation. “It’s a good agreement. I hope it happens,” Le Drian said. “Moreover, the French and German anti-trust authorities are independent of the governments.”

To contact the reporter on this story: John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Kevin Costelloe

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