ON TUESDAY Emmanuel Macron, the French president, hosted talks at which the two most influential players in Libya—Fayez al-Sarraj, the UN-backed prime minister, and Khalifa Haftar, who leads an army in the east of the country—were said to have agreed to a ceasefire and to talks to achieve a “national reconciliation process involving all Libyans”. If that signals the beginning of the end of the chaos that has reigned in Libya since 2011, it could also have profound consequences for the flow of migrants in the central Mediterranean, which has become the busiest, and deadliest, route into Europe for irregular entrants. The vast majority of the 94,445 people who had arrived by July 26th this year left from Libyan ports. But whereas the European Union managed last year to seal its eastern frontiers thanks to a controversial deal with Turkey, the anarchy in Libya has prevented it from identifying a counterparty able and willing to intervene there effectively. Could this be about to change?

The number of people who disembarked at Italian ports is only 7% above last year’s figure. What has given urgency to the situation is that growing numbers of migrants are remaining in Italy, straining to the limit its reception facilities. The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, reckons Italy currently hosts at least 170,000 people in reception centres and accommodation provided by local authorities. Many thousands more, who have been nominally expelled on the grounds that they do not qualify for international protection, are living rough. Under the EU’s Dublin regulation of 2013, the country where asylum-seekers first land is usually the one that should deal with them. But until late 2015 borders in the EU’s passport-free Schengen area were completely open and the Italian authorities lax about fingerprinting migrants on arrival, so in practice they could move on. That is no longer the case. France imposed strict border controls and, under pressure from Brussels, the Italian authorities have tightened up their identification procedures. Italian pleas for help from their EU partners have largely been ignored.

The vague understanding reached in Paris raises more questions than it answers. Can Mr al-Sarraj and General Haftar really agree on a government for the whole of Libya? And, even if they do, would it be able to bring to heel the various militias that hold sway in large parts of the country, some of which derive funding from migrant smuggling? The Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said on Wednesday that Mr al-Sarraj had asked for the Italian navy to help combat the smuggling—and was apparently prepared for them to enter Libyan waters. But, as Mr al-Sarraj himself noted, it is just as necessary to stop migrants entering Libya over its vast, largely unpoliced Saharan borders. Though most of those now arriving in Italy are economic migrants, a substantial minority have a valid case for humanitarian protection. On July 27th, Mr Macron promised to meet their needs by setting up processing centres in Libya where they could apply for asylum.

For Italy, Mr Macron’s intervention is both good news and bad: bad if it gives France an enhanced role in Libya, a country that Italy, the former colonial power, has long seen as falling within its sphere of influence; good if it adds weight to the EU’s hitherto clumsy efforts to halt the flow of migrants. Coming after a flurry of Italian diplomatic activity earlier in the month, the French initiative suggests the hunt for a solution is acquiring new momentum. But all concerned need to be aware that in dealing with Libya there are no quick fixes.