Far-right interior minister and deputy premier Matteo Salvini on Friday said "if necessary" he would visit Italy's northwest border town of Clavier, where the government accuses French police of pushing back migrants, including children.
"I hope I won't have to do it because I hoped the French would stop. But if necessary, I will go," Salvini wrote on Facebook.
France denied that it has tried to push back child migrants after an alleged incident on 18 October shortly after 10.30 pm during a visit by experts sent by the ministry to Claviere.
Prosecutors in Turin said last week they had opened a European judicial probe into "unknown persons for the transport of foreigners aimed at their illegal entry into Italy" over a previous alleged incident in Claviere on 12 October when a French police van dropped off two African migrants in woods.
Salvini has confirmed there will be permanent patrols in the area and has asked his French counterpart Christophe Castaner to come to Rome for talks, interior ministry sources said this week. Ministry technical staff are probing the alleged border violations, the sources added.
Tensions between France and Italy have risen in recent months as Rome has accused Paris of hypocrisy by refusing to take in "a fair share" of more than 700,000 migrants who have reached Italy by boat since 2014.
