The French ambassador to Italy, who was recalled last week during a spat between the two countries, is to return to Rome on Friday, France's European affairs minister said.

French ambassador to Italy, Christian Masset.

"He will return today to Rome," Nathalie Loiseau told RTL radio on Friday, one week after the envoy was recalled.

Relations plunged to their lowest level since the end of World War II last week when France recalled its ambassador to protest "unfounded attacks and outlandish claims" by Italy's new populist government leaders, Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that when Di Maio met "yellow vest" anti-government protesters outside Paris a "line was crossed."

The deputy prime minister, who is also minister of economic development, "met someone who has called for armed insurrection and for the intervention of the army", Le Drian told Italy's Corriere della Sera daily in an interview published Thursday.

Di Maio has said that he met the "yellow vests" as leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement rather than as minister.

He said the aim was to prepare a common front for European Parliament elections in May, while boasting on Twitter that "the wind of change has crossed the Alps".