(ANSA-AFP) - ROME, SEP 26 - The presidents of France and Germany attended the funeral Tuesday of former Italian head of state Giorgio Napolitano, at a time of tensions between both countries and Rome over migration. Emmanuel Macron and Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined Italian and other European dignitaries in paying their respects to the former president, who died on Friday aged 98.
    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also attended the funeral, and according to diplomatic sources, could have a private meeting later with Macron, although nothing has been officially announced. Meloni's hard-right government has clashed with both Paris and Berlin in recent months over migration, after a surge in arrivals on Italy's shores. After heated rhetoric in both France and Italy over who should take in the migrants, Macron and Meloni have promised to act together. "We cannot leave the Italians alone," Macron said in a television interview on Sunday -- an offer of help that Meloni immediately said she "welcomed with great interest". Rome's relations with Berlin are frostier. Meloni wrote to Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the weekend to complain about Berlin's funding of charity projects to help migrants either at sea or onshore in Italy.
    (ANSA-AFP).