Renzi under fire:

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi faced calls to resign on Friday after one of his ministers was forced to quit over allegations she tweaked the country’s 2015 budget to suit her businessman boyfriend.

Economic Development Minister Federica Guidi stepped down on Thursday, hours after it was announced that her partner, Gianluca Gemelli, is under criminal investigation for abusing his personal connection to the centre-left government in a suspected bid to help his engineering company win contracts with French oil group Total.

At the centre of the scandal is a wiretap recording of Guidi telling her partner that an amendment to the budget law related to Tempa Rossa, an oilfield Total is develop-