Floods: France stands in solidarity with Italy - Macron

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 19 - France stands in solidarity with Italy over the flooding and landslide emergency in Emilia Romagna and is ready to provide assistance, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet in Italian on Friday.
    "Italy has been hit by floods and considerable damage. Whole neighborhoods have been swept away. We think of the victims and the families who have lost everything," tweeted Marco on the sidelines of the G7 in Hiroshima.
    "France is in solidarity. I have told Prime Minister Meloni that we are ready to provide all useful assistance".
    The tweet came against the backdrop of recent tensions between the two countries over repeated French criticism of the Italian premier's policies on migration.
    The spat started after French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Meloni was incapable of solving the migrant problems she had campaigned on.
    Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani subsequently cancelled a trip to Paris to see his counterpart Catherine Colonna in protest at the attack.
    Stéphane Séjourné, the secretary general of French President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party, thein weighed in, saying "Meloni does lots of rabble-rousing on illegal immigration: her policies are unjust, inhuman and ineffective".
    Meloni, however, dismissed the comments, saying Séjourné was trying to use Italy for domestic political purposes. (ANSA).