Meeting with Macron went well - Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 20 - Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Saturday that the meeting she had with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the G7 summit "went as well as the previous meetings".
    The encounter comes after recent tension between Rome and Paris stemming from French officials' criticism of the Italian government.
    "We are practical people who go beyond the election-campaign stuff we both have," she said.
    "We are two countries who have close positions on many issues".
    She said that Italy and EU "cannot become a refugee camp", which means it is necessary to "defend the external border" of the bloc.
    The tension started with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin saying 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, then 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).