½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

I read the piece posted by Casa Monal (thanks for keeping this in the forefront), and at first reading I thought that the word 'visa' was misused. It wasn't - and that is the 'legitimate beef' which the French have with Italy (IMO). Italy did not merely grant the fleeing migrants a temporary Carta d'Identita - they granted some form of document 'valido per l'espatria'. I'm resident in Italy, (for so long that I could get an ½ûÂþÌìÌà passport if I wanted, and if I did become a citizen I could travel Schengen without my UK passport) but I cannot enter France et al on my ½ûÂþÌìÌà CdI. Quite what legal basis Italy has for granting visas to non ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs is a bit obscure to me. So - how are Silvio and Nicolas going to resolve this? If Silvio gets saddled with the substantial numbers of already arrived (probably) refugees he's not going to be inclined to be hospitable to the next influx. This is clearly a situation that Europe has to deal with - and if Europe deals with it sensitively with any luck it can be a short term difficulty. It doesn't seem to me that any sensitivity is being shown at the moment - Maroni has come up with a clever ruse, quite possibly illegal, and the French have called his bluff.  

Brianm - I'm not at all certain that you are on the current wavelength in this thread. It seems to me that your bitch is that ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs are lazy barsts who like to pass the buck and do the 'manàna' stuff (like the Spanish) - and I agree that this is a position which you could convincingly argue. (Sorry, I have an ½ûÂþÌìÌà rather than a Spanish keyboard, and I think I needed an accent over the 'n' in manàna, but I can't be arsed to bring up the character map!) But I fail to see why you are introducing migrants/immigrants/legals/illegals/refugees into this discussion? Have I missed something?

I can (slightly) understand the French point of view. They don't want any more immigrants, so they are blaming Italy for having 'insecure' borders.  They are not thinking about just what they would do if Lampedusa happened to be French: would they simply turn around the overcrowded inappropriate boats which had arrived laden with north africans, and double the chances of them sinking? The 'international community' would be at Italy's throat if they did that. The ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs do escort seaworthy boats back to the north african coast. Europe has taken two positions on the uprisings. Firstly they've sent armed forces to 'secure' Libya (ha ha) and as we all know one of the prime movers was France. It doesn't require a conspiracy theorist to realise this is more about France wishing to avoid immigration than it is about oil. (It's quite odd really, since Libyans are more likely to have a fellow feeling with Italy, but the French didn't get all warmongering over Tunisia...) Secondly the EU has made all the right humanitarian noises about sheltering escapees from nasty regimes - and Italy has responded in my view appropriately. Aside from the rational impulse to ship out as many immigrants as possible into greater Europe, (in accordance with earlier comments by the EU), hence giving them travel documents, the ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs also have in place 'quotas' for each region of Italy to accommodate on a more or less permanent basis thousands of displaced Tunisians. As usual, this stuff is being coordinated by the Catholic Church within Italy. Today it seems that the EU has (presumably under pressure) said something along the lines of we didn't mean to welcome them, and are coming out of the 'side' of France. It's as if Italy isn't regarded as Europe in this context - and the practicalities are being completely ignored. Anyway, those little britainers amongst us have nothing to worry about - the UK isn't part of the Schengen treaty.

The UNHCR does run a camp on Lampedusa (has done since 2008).

What has happened (in words of one syllable) is that loads of Tunisians and other north Africans (refugees - maybe) have landed on Lampedusa. Lampedusa is a small ½ûÂþÌìÌà island with a population of about 5,000, and by nobody's standards would it be a destination of choice. So, something like 5,000 non ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs of north african extraction are arriving each week on this small island. The ½ûÂþÌìÌà state (also the UN) have set up tent cities, but they want to move on these immigrants. Italy has given them travel permits (essentially temporary carte d'identita) which allows these people to travel freely within the parts of the European Union which have signed up to the Schengen treaty. Now, the French, (who have a mainland rather difficult to reach by boat from Tunisia et al), consider that the north africans (who mainly speak French) should be looked after by Italy, simply on the basis that they have first set foot on European soil on Lampedusa. So, the French are completely denying the Schengen treaty. In my opinion the French position is absolutely untenable - the "about face" by Sarkosy who was (less than a year ago) trying to push for a 'mediterranean community' is utterly gobsmacking. I think that his earlier position (get north africa onside because they are neighbours) was pretty sensible - but suddenly today he has decided he doesn't want any more "muslims" in France. Maybe there is an election pending?

I'm not un-sympathetic, but you are doing yourself no favours by reposting your problems in different threads, and repeating them in the same thread. If there are any developments, somebody might assist with a smidgeon of advice, but anybody with any input based on your original post has already responded.

A tiny bit of further research suggests that the autostrade publish the calendar sometime around the end of July! Well, that is early enough, isn't it. As other posters have said, notorious bottlenecks (like the San Gottardo tunnel) are best avoided at weekends - certainly on Sunday evenings when the Swiss are trying to get back home and the Milanese likewise. Saturday evening (when it seems to me you are likely to hit this spot) would be better than Sunday - but something like Tuesday lunchtime would be the best.

The autostrade italiane publish a sort of calendar where they show you which days, and at which times,  in August and September they'll advise you how crowded they expect their routes to be. If you opt for one of their 'black spotted' times it isn't a good idea to drive then! I'd hoped to find their calendar for 2011, but I didn't mange to do this. Maybe you could do better, and this is a good starting point

which might just be beachboys for cura te ipsum - but whooda guessed it!

There does seem to be a rabbit off with the post numbers (how sad of us to be concerned!) but the thread claims a viewcount of 4058 - perhaps that is a more trustworthy statistic.