France demands from the United Kingdom a migration pact with the EU that includes legal entry routes
France believes that the only way to find a solution to the increasingly numerous and dangerous sea crossings in the English Channel is for the United Kingdom and the European Union to reach a post-Brexit migration agreement. A pact for the readmission of migrants without further ado, as proposed by London, not to mention because, according to Paris, Europe cannot be a "substitute" for British migration policy. What Boris Johnson's government should do is open a "legal immigration pathway" that allows those who want to seek a better life on British soil to do so safely.
This is how the French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, will explain it to his British counterpart in a letter that should arrive at 10 Downing Street this Tuesday and that Paris hopes will not appear on social networks, like Johnson's last letter to the President Emmanuel Macron, which created great discomfort in a French government. Paris calls for "seriousness" in the negotiations on such a sensitive issue.
“What we want is a balanced agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU that responds to all the problems, (…) an agreement that opens the legal channels for immigration in Great Britain”, said this Monday the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, at a press conference in Paris. The figures, he assured, support his line of argument: although 60% of migrants who arrive on the French coast to try to reach the British coast have the right to request asylum in Europe, less than 5% do. “You might wonder why they don't do it, we suggest it, but they want to do it in England,” Darmanin said. But, he added, London doesn't seem to be doing its job: “We found that there are 30,000 asylum claims in the UK; in France there are 150,000. London does not do its part.
Last week's shipwreck, which left at least 27 migrants dead, has marked a turning point in the migratory pulse —one of many— that London and Paris have maintained for months. Faced with British accusations that the French are not doing enough to prevent sea crossings in precarious vessels, Paris responds that this phenomenon, which has experienced a great increase since security was strengthened at the Eurotunnel and in the ports, requires negotiations serene and without political "instrumentalizations", as Johnson believes he does.
In a new ball to the British camp, the French government, which held a national defense and security council on Monday focused on the channel's migration crisis, established its "unacceptable red lines." These imply a clear rejection of the proposals launched so far by London — readmission of migrants, Franco-British patrols on French beaches and returns at sea — and demonstrate the difficulties of a post-Brexit negotiation.
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The agreement that is needed “cannot be a mere readmission agreement” on European soil for migrants who have arrived in British territory —more than a million in an irregular situation, according to London— because “it is not a unilateral agreement”, Darmanin insisted. “The United Kingdom has not left the world, although it has left Europe politically (…). We cannot be a substitute for British policy”, stressed the French Interior Minister, who on Sunday welcomed immigration officials from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the European Commission to Calais to discuss the issue. The British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, was excluded from the appointment after Johnson made public his letter to Macron demanding the readmission of migrants who arrive in his territory.
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Pending a response from London, Paris announced Monday that it will double the staff of the office dedicated to the fight against clandestine immigration and that it will focus on human smuggling networks. The idea, Darmanin explained, is to apply the same tactics as in the fight against drugs, creating "antennas" in the most affected regions and organizing teams that include magistrates and finance officials capable of dismantling networks that extend throughout the neighboring countries and are also partly organized at least from the UK.
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