UPDATE 2-French envoy returns to Italy as neighbours seek to rekindle friendship

France's ambassador to Italy returned to Rome on Friday, more than a week after he was recalled by President Emmanuel Macron, as the European neighbours sought to defuse the worst diplomatic crisis between them since World War Two.

A Senior French diplomat described the recall as "electro-shock therapy" that had been necessary to put an end to a campaign of "repeated, baseless" attacks by Italian political leaders against France. Some commentators saw the recall as an over-reaction by Macron but French officials said it had persuaded Italian politicians to reaffirm publicly their friendship with France and halt their verbal onslaught -- at least for now. "We blew the whistle loud enough to make everybody stop," the senior diplomat said.

French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau confirmed the ambassador's return early on Friday. Ties between the two nations, traditionally close allies, have grown increasingly tense since mid-2018, with Italy's Deputy Prime Ministers Luigi di Maio and Matteo Salvini firing verbal pot-shots at Macron and his government, mostly over migration policy.

The recall came after di Maio met members of France's "yellow vest" movement, which has mounted a sometimes-violent wave of protests against Macron's liberal economic reform programme. Salvini initially wanted to meet Macron directly but later wrote what French diplomats described as a "polite" letter to his counterpart, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, inviting him to Italy, French officials said.

Italy's president also spoke with Macron by telephone "and they expressed the extent to which (their) ... friendship ... was important and how the two countries needed one another," Loiseau told RTL. But French diplomats do not rule out tensions resurfacing ahead of European elections in May, with Macron and Salvini framing the campaign as a clash between pro-European "progressives" and Eurosceptic nationalists.

Migration policy and French initiatives to bring peace to Libya, a former Italian colony, without consulting Rome have both been sources of tension in recent months. A split in the Italian coalition government over the fate of an under-construction Alpine rail tunnel linking France and Italy, could also test relations going forward. (Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Michel Rose; Editing by Richard Lough and Catherine Evans)

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