![Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Italy.](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/years-of-lead-italy-france-relations-extradition-asylum-mitterrand-08102023-1.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
In March, the latest chapter was written in a political and legal controversy between Italy and France that dates back to the 1980s. But while a verdict from France’s highest criminal court caps a four-decade-long saga that began during Italy’s “years of lead,” it fails to resolve the tensions at the heart of those events.