ROME, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- A dispute between Italy and France continued Wednesday as French authorities denied allegations by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini that French police are "dumping" migrants across the border.
Salvini on Tuesday accused France of trying to expel underage migrants by driving them unofficially into Italy and "dumping them" by the side of the road.
On Wednesday, the French Prefecture of the Hautes-Alpes "denied expelling underage migrants into Italy on the night of October 17-18, as stated on social media by... Salvini," French news channel BFMTV reported.
Citing an official statement, the French news channel said that unaccompanied minors are "systematically placed in (French) ... facilities, and not handed over to Italian authorities".
Salvini, who also serves as deputy prime minister of Italy, has ordered a permanent police patrol in the northern Piedmont region along the border with France, where unofficial "migrant dumping" incidents have been reportedly taking place over the past several days.
"France has tried to repel underage migrants into Italy," Salvini, leader of Italy's rightwing, anti-immigrant and euro-skeptic League, tweeted on Tuesday.
"It happened on Oct. 18 after 22:30, but we stopped them," wrote Salvini, who last week posted a video showing a French gendarmerie (police) van dropping off three people, who appear to be African, on a road near the Italian ski resort of Claviere, which lies close to the French border.
"I confirm the permanent presence of a patrol at the border and I confirm my invitation to Rome to French Interior Minister (Christophe) Castaner, it is essential we definitively shed light on these episodes," Salvini added on Tuesday.
Also on Wednesday, ANSA Italian news agency cited the French prefecture as saying the video showed an officially authorized "procedure of non-admission at the border".
NGOs like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have denounced what they said are "systematic rights violations, illegal practices and violence" by French police against migrants and asylum seekers at the border with Italy.
Migrants allege that French police insult them, chase them with guns through the woods, deny them medical attention, and interrogate them without interpreters.
Turin prosecutors have opened an investigation into the border incidents, ANSA reported.
