INSIGHT: Italy vs France – How oil interests and territorial control are fuelling the migration disputes and stand offs

Il Fatto Quotidiano reports that it is not all as it seems in the very tough clash between Italy and France, between Matteo Salvini and Emmanuel Macron on immigration; a real diplomatic war on the emergency landings.

There’s more to it. Amongst this there are economic interests weigh?

How important is the Libyan oil, the uranium of Niger, the Fezzan gas, gold, cobalt, manganese and lithium of the rare earths of the Sahel?

A lot, as reported by Il Messaggero, which points out that the territories mentioned are precisely those of origin and transit of migratory flows that are sweeping Europe.

Consider also the fact that in Libya the duel is not only between Salvini and Macron, but also between Eni and Total, respectively Italian and French colossus.

Eni plays a leading role (the daily production of barrels is 320 thousand against 31,500), despite the efforts of Macron, who first recognised the premier of Tripoli, Serraj, as the first interlocutor.

And Eni? It is not to look: the company’s CEO Descalzi, in fact, looks with interest to the former French Algeria, another possible terrain of economic clash between Italy and France.

So, in Libya, the duel between Italy and France circles also around a delicate oil game.

There are the big interests of Endesa (Enel) and Gdf-Suez. And again, for Italy, the highway project that Berlusconi promised to Gaddafi as compensation for colonialism, a “bill” of a billion euros that will be occupied by Salini and Impregilo and which was recently confirmed.

So did the Green Stream gas pipeline.

All these are interests contended by France, in the territory of the Sahel, where there is French military presence since 2013 (first in Mali, then in Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and finally also Chad).

All the countries mentioned above are those in which the extra-hot, extra-European hot-spots should be installed.

It is therefore simple to understand how behind the game on migrants there are very heavy economic interests, for which the relations with local governments are decisive and influence a sort of soft control of the territory.