Italy, France mull Tunisia migrant boat alerts

Italy and France are considering deploying sea or air craft to alert Tunisia to the departure of clandestine boats ferrying migrants north to Italian shores, like the young Tunisian man who is the chief suspect in a fatal knife attack at a French church last week, the Italian interior minister said Friday.

The Italian minister, Luciana Lamorgese, and French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin held talks in Rome on Friday. Darmanin declined to fault Italy for its handling of the Tunisian suspect, who landed on Italy’s Lampedusa island in September, was quarantined under pandemic rules and received expulsion papers from Italian authorities before reaching France in October.

“In no moment did I think there was something defective” in how Italy managed the case, Darmanin said, responding to a question at a news conference with Lamorgese after their talks. Instead, he thanked Lamorgese and Italy’s intelligence services for an exchange of information in the days following the attack in Nice.

Tunisians fleeing a virus-battered economy make up the largest contingent of migrants landing in Italy this year, and they are coming directly from Tunisia in boats sturdy enough not to need rescue. In recent past years, the majority of migrants reaching Italy southern shores came from subSaharan Africa and traveled across the Mediterranean in unseaworthy boats launched by traffickers in Libya.

Lamorgese said she and Darmarin discussed a plan that would involve deploying “naval or air assets that could alert the Tunisian authorities to eventual departures” and help them intercept the boats, “in their autonomy that we don’t want to violate.”