STRASBOURG — Giuseppe Conte and lawmakers engaged in a bad-tempered exchange in the European Parliament on Tuesday, with senior MEP Guy Verhofstadt calling the Italian prime minister a “puppet.”

Conte, making his debut in the Parliament, gave a speech on the future of Europe in which he said the EU has withdrawn “with fear” into procedures and had “lost contact” with the people.

Conte also blamed the EU for putting off important decisions on migration, and said “Europe can’t go on coping on migration with an emergency footing.” His speech took place a day after he told POLITICO that the Italian government wants to give Europe “a shake.”

Leading MEPs hit back, blaming Italy’s populist government for challenging EU policies and causing a diplomatic spat with France.

Even Parliament President Antonio Tajani made clear his party, the conservative Forza Italia, “is not a supporter of the government.”

Udo Bullmann, leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, rejected Conte’s criticism, saying that Italy is heading “into political and economic isolation,” with “failing industrial production.”

Last week, Paris recalled its ambassador to Rome — the last time that happened was in 1940, when Italy declared war on France — after what it called “repeated, baseless attacks” from the ruling Italian parties. The discontent peaked when Luigi Di Maio, leader of the 5Star Movement and deputy prime minister, met with leaders of the Yellow Jackets protest movement in Paris.

“What is this? What is the use of it?” Bullmann asked in reference to the spat with France. Bullmann also said that Italy’s other deputy prime minister, League leader Matteo Salvini, “has a scapegoat for everything but no solution for anything.”

Renaud Muselier, a French MEP, blamed Italy for “interference” in French affairs. “After 70 years of living together without conflict, making the relations between our two countries tense is a major diplomatic error.”

Verhofstadt, who addressed Conte in Italian, said he regrets that Italy has gone from “being a staunch defender of Europe to the back of the line.”

“Today, it hurts me to see the political degeneration of Italy,” Verhofstadt said. The country “sometimes behaves in an anti-European way, openly spiteful against other member states.”

He also accused Conte, a lawyer and professor at the University of Florence, who was plucked from relative obscurity to lead the nation last June after the 5Star Movement and League formed a coalition, of being a “puppet” of Di Maio and Salvini, the powerful party leaders.

In response, Conte said, “We have to be careful about the words that we use. I am not a puppet, I am very pleased to represent my people.”

“The puppets are those who work for lobbies and other powers, and that’s not the case here,” he said, adding that “shameful things” are being said about Italy, “that we are letting children die in the sea — that is simply not true.”

Salvini tweeted on Tuesday evening that it is “shameful” the way Conte had been treated and urged voters to “send them [MEPs] home” in May’s European election.