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| - The European Parliament's speaker David Sassoli expressed "astonishment and irritation" Wednesday at France for publicly demanding the EU's legislature return to its official seat in Strasbourg. The flash of anger, conveyed by Sassoli's spokeswoman to AFP, broke with diplomatic niceties and underscored the darkening mood in the disagreement between the parliament and Paris over the issue. Although the EU treaty declares France's eastern city of Strasbourg as the European Parliament's official seat, MEPs have been using their Brussels building since Covid-19 restrictions crimped travel. France fears many MEPs will try to use the current emergency as a way to keep Brussels as their permanent legislative home, seen as a more comfortable and less costly option than the long trip to Strasbourg that they take nearly every month. French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune has taken the lead in pressuring Sassoli to make good on promises to get back to Strasbourg as early as the coronavirus permits. On Wednesday, he tweeted out a letter he sent to Sassoli in which he underscored the treaty obligation to Strasbourg, France's "real concern" that parliament has not sat there in months, and a worry that money may now be spent to renovate the legislature's 27-year-old building in Brussels. France, Beaune wrote, "requests that existing administrative services be kept in Strasbourg and thought be given to relocating other European Parliament services to Strasbourg". According to Sassoli's spokeswoman, the parliamentary speaker and MEPs were a "bit shocked" by Beaune's letter, which they judged as "a bit much". "This goes beyond the relations between an EU institution and a national government," she said. "The letter was received with astonishment and irritation." Sassoli, the spokeswoman said, "is not going to respond to Beaune's letter, received today". pe-rmb/dc/wai
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