Italy, France to patrol Tunisian coast to block immigrants

Italy and France have agreed to joint sea and air patrols to try to block new Tunisian migrants from sailing to European shores.

The deal was announced today by Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni after meeting his French counterpart in Milan, as they sought to defuse a tense border crisis.

Rome and Paris have been sparring fiercely over what to do about the more than 20,000 Tunisians who have sailed across the Mediterranean to Italy in recent weeks after political upheaval in their North African homeland. But some concessions seemed to emerge after the meeting between Mr Maroni and French minister Claude Gueant.

"We have agreed on developing common action," Mr Maroni told reporters, adding that both sides would "take initiatives to block the departure of clandestine migrants from Tunisia" with joint sea and air patrols.

Yesterday Mr Maroni had accused France of harbouring a hostile attitude toward the migrants from Tunisia, a former French colony. Paris, in turn, had vowed to tighten its own border controls in possible violation of EU-wide border rules so that migrants could not cross into French territory from north-west Italy.

The two European neighbours also agreed to work out a system under which migrants receiving temporary residency permits from Italian authorities would head back to Tunisia during the permit period on what Mr Maroni called a "voluntary" basis. It was not immediately clear how that would work.

Mr Gueant promised that France would follow the Schengen free-circulation rules for those holding valid documents from member states - border rules followed by many European countries - but he insisted that the Tunisian migrants must have "economic resources".

That appeared to be a concession, for France in recent days had blocked the entry of hundreds of Tunisians who had been trying to cross into France from north-west Italy.

Italian officials had also criticised other European Union nations for not helping it cope with a flood of migrants in the last few months from the turmoil in North Africa. Mr Maroni tried to ease local tensions today by saying the matter was "not a French-Italian question but one that must be settled on a European level".

After Tunisian migrants on rickety boats overwhelmed the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, Italy transferred thousands of them to mainland camps. Hundreds of the migrants, however, fled the Italian camps and headed straight to the French border, hoping to live with relatives already in France.

The seaborne exodus started after Tunisia's long-time authoritarian leader, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, was overthrown in mid-January.

Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has appealed for more solidarity by fellow EU nations on accepting the migrants and helping Italy cope with the deluge.