* Berlusconi to visit Lampedusa after protests
* Operation to shift migrants from island stepped up
* Italy seeks EU help, criticises France
By Leon Malherbe
LAMPEDUSA, Italy, March 30 (Reuters) - Italy prepared to move thousands of illegal Tunisian migrants off Lampedusa on Wednesday after an outcry over the government's failure to solve a growing humanitarian crisis on the tiny southern island.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was expected to visit Lampedusa, some 200 km south of Sicily, as ships arrived to begin the evacuation to centres in other parts of Italy.
About 19,000 have arrived on overloaded boats since the start of the year, when the fall of Tunisian President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali loosened previously strict frontier controls and opened the way into Europe for thousands seeking work.
Although predominantly Tunisians, small numbers of Eritreans have also made their way to the island via Libya.
In normal times a quiet tourist and fishing port, the harbour of Lampedusa has been transformed in recent weeks into a garbage-strewn encampment where hundreds of migrants from Tunisia disembark every day.
Almost 6,000 are living in makeshift shelters, many without water or toilets, outnumbering the normal population and bringing local infrastructure close to collapse.
After weeks of complaints that went disregarded, residents stepped up their protests this week, blocking the harbour and threatening a general strike if the problem is not solved swiftly.
Berlusconi, entangled in a series of corruption trials and facing separate charges next week of paying for sex with a minor, has so far had little to say in public about the growing emergency.
But after weeks of inactivity, the government has scrambled to respond, promising to clear the island and move all the migrants to holding centres elsewhere in Italy.
"ABSOLUTELY INACTIVE"
The government has struggled to come up with a longer-term response, with Berlusconi's coalition allies in the Northern League demanding that migrants be sent back to Tunisia immediately and others demanding hat European partners help.
Bitterness is strong over the attitude of France, which has clamped down on migrants crossing the border at the northern town of Ventimiglia, with police sending any they find back across the border to Italy. "Europe has been absolutely inactive on this," Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told SkyTG24 television. He said a political commitment was needed from the European Union but that this had so far been lacking.
"Try talking to the French who are setting up a wall at Ventimiglia, when it is well known that 80 percent of those arriving in Lampedusa speak French and maybe have relatives in French cities," he said.
However politicians in Sicily, the region that includes Lampedusa, have also complained that the richer regions of the north, bastions of the anti-immigrant Northern League, have been very slow to agree to take any migrants.
Italy has promised more than 200 million euros in aid and credit lines to Tunisia to help the new government restore border controls and stop the flow of people leaving. "We expect full cooperation from Tunisia and we will help help the Tunisians at home with development aid but they have to give commitments," Frattini said.
Italian politicians have repeatedly stressed that those leaving Tunisia cannot be considered refugees following the overthrow of the former government.
"The Tunisians come from a territory where, two months after the insurrection, normal life has resumed, people are working, companies are open," Luca Zaia, governor of the northern region of Veneto told Canale 5 television. (Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by David Stamp)
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