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More than one in ten French people in Britain want to leave after Brexit

More than one in ten - or 13 percent - French people currently living in Britain want to leave the UK once Brexit has gone through, a new poll reveals.

Published: 14 November 2018 14:41 CET

More than one in ten French people in Britain want to leave after Brexit

It seems that unsurprisingly a significant number of French people in Britain are feeling the Brexit burn.

A survey by polling agency OpinionWay, released on Tuesday, showed that 13 percent of French people in Britain – there are an estimated 300,000 – want to leave once the UK leaves the European Union on March 29th next year.

Of these people, 76 percent of them want to return to France while the rest were divided between different European countries, with Spain and Switzerland leading with nine percent each.

Meanwhile a quarter of those surveyed said they had not made up their minds and the majority (62 percent) said they intended to stay.

Despite the majority of respondents saying they intend to stay, 71 percent of the total number of those surveyed believe that Brexit will have a negative impact on their personal lives and 60 percent also believed it would have a negative impact on their children's futures.

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'More holes than cheese': A recap of what Theresa May's Brexit deal means for Brits in Europe

And unsurprisingly a whopping 89 percent said they had noticed “changes since the announcement of Brexit in the UK”, with 61 percent of French respondents observing “political tensions”, 48 percent said there had been a “rise in the cost of living” and 43 percent mentioned “social tensions”.

The poll took into account the opinions of 2,386 French people living in Britain and the results come at a critical time for Brexit negotiations.

British Prime Minister Theresa May presented her already much-maligned Brexit deal to her government on Wednesday.

If you want a recap of what that draft deal – as it stands so far – means for British citizens living in Europe and those who aim to move here in the near future, click here.

And if you want to follow live updates as Theresa May brings Brexit deal to UK cabinet, click here for our live blog over on thelocal.com.

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France may cut Channel islands ferry service after post-Brexit collapse in visitor numbers

Travel to and from the Channel islands – which are British crown dependancies – has reduced significantly since Brexit, when passports became a requirement for those travelling in and out of the islands and their ports.

Now the president of the local authorities in the Manche département of France has asked that passport requirements be lifted, with hopes of increasing travel to and from the islands.

Jean Morin told Ouest France that there has been a “considerable reduction in the number of passengers on routes between the Channel ports and the islands” and as a result the ferry service between France and the islands was seriously in deficit.

“On these lines, we will never make money, but we cannot be in deficit”, explained the Morin.

He added that if a solution is not found by the deadline of May 1st, 2023, then local authorities will stop funding the shipping company DNO, which runs the Manche Îles Express ferry service.

“If the passport requirement is not lifted by then, we will have no choice but not to renew the service contract for 2024-2025”, Morin told Ouest France.

Only around half of French people have a passport, since the ID card issued to all adults is sufficient to travel within the EU.

READ MORE: Ask the Expert: How Brexit has changed the rules on pensions, investments and bank accounts for Brits in France

DNO re-launched operations in April and since then, the company, and by extension the département – who plays a large role in funding it via a public service delegation – has been losing significant funds.

According to Franceinfo, the number of passengers has been cut in half since passport requirements were introduced. Franceinfo estimates that for one ticket for one passenger costing €30, the département spends €200.

According to Morin, the ideal solution would be to require a simple ID for tourists seeking to take just day-long or weekend-long stays on the islands – which reportedly represents at least 90 percent of the boats’ usual passengers.

“The Jersey government is working hard on the issue and is waiting for an agreement from London and the European Union. There is the possibility that things could move quickly”, Morin told Franceinfo on Tuesday.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit, boats going to and from the French mainland carried at least 110,000 people per year. In 2022, only 40,000 passengers made the journey, Olivier Normand, the sales manager of Manche Îles Express, told Actu France.

Normand had expected the decline, however. He told Actu France that the company had taken a survey, which found that almost half (between 40 and 50 percent) of their clientele did not have a passport.

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