Macron attends the G7 Summit in the Sicilian town of Taormina, Italy | Angelo Carconi/EPA Emmanuel Macron’s Italian snubs French president riles Rome with decision to block Italian takeover of a port and freelancing in Libya.

PARIS — For someone who has put European integration at the top of his foreign policy agenda, Emmanuel Macron has shown little regard for France’s big southern neighbor, Italy.

Several French moves over the past few months have been considered tactless, if not downright hostile, in Rome, where the Macron-mania that has gripped the Continent for the last three months appears to have quietened down.

The latest snub was a decision by the French president to nationalize the country’s STX shipyard in order to thwart a deal that would have given control to Italy’s Fincantieri.

Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister, is due to travel to Rome on Tuesday to meet with his Italian counterpart Pier Carlo Padoan and try to reassure him about France’s intentions.

The future of the shipyard — at Saint-Nazaire in western France — was thrown into doubt when its South Korean owner, STX, collapsed last year. Only one bidder, Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, came forward to buy STX’s two-thirds holding for €79.5 million. A compromise deal was reached under Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande, which would have effectively left Italy with a majority shareholding. That deal was scrapped by Le Maire, who instead suggested a 50-50 split, a move the Italians rejected.

The French decision was never going to play well in Italy, which has long complained that the EU’s free movement of capital rules are rather one-sided when applied over the Alps. In the last few years, big French companies have acquired control or significant stakes in several of their Italian competitors, whereas the opposite — so Rome claims, denouncing French “protectionism” — hasn't been the case.

The complaint dates back at least to the Nicolas Sarkozy years, when a French group took control of Italy’s big dairy and food company Parmalat. French firms have also taken control of Italian banks, energy giant Edison, and media conglomerate Vivendi seized control of Telecom Italia.

Libya slight

The nationalization of STX comes after a series of political slights by Macron that have given Italian officials the impression that he has little regard for their concerns or sensitivities.

The latest came last week when the French president tried to broker peace between Libya’s warring factions, inviting to Paris the head of the U.N.-backed government and the leader of the main armed group controlling vast swathes of the country.

The attempt was met with skepticism by Libya experts, who doubt it will produce anything positive. But Italy, because of its history in Libya and the major role it plays in taking in refugees from the country, had “some grounds to complain” that it wasn’t consulted, said a French foreign policy expert who requested anonymity because he often advises the Macron government.

The French government indicated from the start that its decision to nationalize STX was only “temporary” and designed to give Paris “more time to negotiate the best possible conditions for the Fincantieri stake,” Le Maire said in a press release last week.

He'll find the mood in Italy is defiant, as illustrated by a cartoon in the daily Corriera della Serra that showed Macron head-butting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, as French footballer Zinedine Zidane infamously did to Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the 2006 football World Cup final.

Even the most Euro-friendly of Italian politicians have criticized Macron’s decision on STX. “It’s an industrial and political mistake. Using the narrative of national interest is demagogic and populist. He should know that it’s European competitiveness that can save France,” said Italian MEP Alessia Mosca, a member of former PM Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party.

A French diplomat said Macron “as has become obvious since his election, is still on a learning curve” on diplomatic matters, including, he added, when it comes to European policy.

“Strengthening Europe means taking more than Germany into account. You just don’t treat Italy as if it was Malta” — French diplomat

“There is no doubt that the priority should be to rebuild a strong Franco-German alliance, but does he really need to dis Italy to do that?” the diplomat said, insisting that ideas such as reforming and further integrating the eurozone would require “not only Italy’s passive consent, but some enthusiasm.”

'Gift to populists'

Quite a few Franco-German initiatives of late — including a French-German decision to launch the research and development process for a future joint fighter aircraft — seem to have been taken without consulting Italy, which will be the third-largest European power once the U.K. has left the EU in 2019.

Another reason not to play with Italy’s feelings is that the country will hold an election within a year, and “you should be careful not to fuel anti-European or anti-French sentiment, which would be a gift to populists,” said a French banker who frequently deals with Italy.

Renzi, who will attempt to lead his party to victory in the election, has so far given a low-key reaction to Macron’s STX decision, noting that the French president was merely “defending his country’s interests.”

“I admire [Macron] both as a politician and as a statesman,” the former PM said in a speech on Sunday at the Versiliana cultural festival, in Tuscany.

The French diplomat, however, warned that “strengthening Europe means taking more than Germany into account. You just don’t treat Italy as if it was Malta.”