France sparks huge row as UK accused of not doing enough to stop small boat migrants | World | News
France has sparked a huge row after accusing the UK of not doing enough to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. A French report claims that the UK is not working closely enough with France to reduce the number of illegal crossings.
The report, published by France’s Court of Accounts, says that France is finding it hard to work operationally with the UK. A joint intelligence unit set up in 2020 to fight human smuggling and reduce illegal Channel crossings claims it isn’t getting enough useful information from the UK.
The report also states that the UK doesn’t provide detailed information about the departures of small boats or about the migrants themselves. As a result, the relationship between France and the UK is unbalanced when it comes to sharing information and intelligence.
The Ministry of Defence in the UK has revealed that boat crossings of the English Channel increased by at least 58 percent between 2021 and 2022. This led to over 45,000 migrants being arrested on British shores.
In the same year, 56 percent of crossing attempts were stopped – a figure that remained unchanged from the previous year.
This week, the British government announced a drop in the number of migrants crossing by more than a third in 2023, to just under 26,000.
The Home Office in the UK stated on Wednesday that another 26,000 “of these dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossing attempts were prevented in 2023 thanks to our partnership with France”.
France has been increasing efforts to stop migrants from crossing the Channel in recent years. This includes more police, equipment and facilities.
From 2018 to 2022, the UK gave France 222 million euros (£191.3 million) as part of a bilateral agreement. In March last year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised an additional 541 million euros (£466.3 million) for the period 2023-2026.
The exact number of people living illegally in France is not known. However, researchers from the Pew Research Centre estimated their numbers in 2017 to be between 300,000 and 400,000, in a country of 67 million inhabitants.
This is about three times fewer migrants with no legal status than in the UK and Germany.
The Court of Account’s report also looked at a range of other issues related to illegal immigration policies. These have been subject to 133 changes in law in the past decade.
The report highlighted the challenges of enforcing orders to leave France, despite it having the highest number of deportations in the EU. In 2022, over 150,000 such decisions were made, but only 10% of those ordered to leave actually did so.
The report also discussed a recent immigration bill debate, which largely focused on speeding up the deportation process. However, it stated that “international comparisons suggest that a change of scale is not realistic” for such policies.
UK authorities sent back about 3,500 people to their home countries and Germany sent back about 13,000 people in 2022, according to French interior ministry statistics.
The report listed several reasons for these difficulties, including proving the identity of migrants, reluctance from home countries to issue authorisation for their return, and refusal by commercial airlines and pilots to transport them.
