Paris-Rome tension over Italian support for Yellow Vests

(ANSA) - Rome, January 8 - Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio hit back on Tuesday after French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau told Italian officials to butt out after expressing support for the Yellow Vests protest movement. Di Maio said Monday that his 5-Star Movement (M5S) was ready to provide support to the Yellow Vests while fellow Deputy Premier, Interior Minister and League party leader Matteo Salvini, also voiced his backing for the protests. Di Maio said Tuesday that it was rich of France to tell Italy to mind its own business. "Maybe (Loiseau) is forgetting that her president, (Emmanuel) Macron), compared us to leprosy when talking about our government," Di Maio said on Facebook. Loiseau also returned to the issue on Tuesday, saying Paris would take it up with Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi.
    "We speak often, about many things," she said. "We'll talk about this too. "The priority of every government is to take care of the well-being of its citizens, so I think that the well-being of the Italian people is the priority of the Italian government.
    "I don't think dealing with the yellow vests has anything to do with the well-being of the Italian people".
    Loiseau briefly touched on the issue with Moavero on the sidelines of the EU general affairs council in Brussels.
    A source at Macron's office, meanwhile, said Di Maio's words in support for the Yellow Vests were "for domestic electoral purposes".
    The Elyséee Palace source said the words were probably aimed at League leader Salvini, who is seen as overshadowing the M5S leader, or at his own M5S rival Alessandro Di Battista, and certainly not at Macron.
    "We don't want to add polemic to polemic," said the source.
    "It's not worth it". The European Commission, meanwhile, said Tuesday that it was behind Macron's executive. "We don't make comments on other comments," a spokesperson for Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said.
    "The European Commission supports President Macron and the French authorities, who have our confidence to put into practice the programme the president was elected on".