The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni spoke on live TV, stating how France “continues to exploit poor, African countries” hence contributing to the increase in immigration to the European continent.
Though it went viral late 2022, the video, however, was taken from an interview given by Ms Meloni on 19 January, 2019 when she was a Member of Parliament and the leader of the right-wing political party, Brothers of Italy.
This came amid tensions between the two countries on migration issues that involved Italy’s refusal to allow a migrant rescue ship to dock in, which France denounced as “unacceptable behaviour”.
In the video, Ms Meloni held up a CFA franc banknote and called it a “colonial currency” that France prints for 14 African countries that, according to her, it uses to exploit resources of these nations.
She then raised a picture of a child in a gold mine in Burkina Faso, and said, “50% of everything that Burkina Faso exports ends up in the French treasury.”
“The gold that this child goes down a tunnel to extract, mostly ends up in the coffers of the French state.”
“The solution is not to take Africans and bring them to Europe, the solution is to free Africa from certain Europeans who exploit it.” she remarked at the end of the video.
