OPINION: France and the UK need to get real if they really want stop Channel migrant crossings
There may be no solution to the migrant crisis but the least France, the UK and Italy could do is be realistic and cooperate, writes John Lichfield. But is there any hope of that?
The British Home Secretary, the daughter of migrants from Mauritius and Kenya, came to Paris this week to meet the French interior minister, whose parents are partly Maltese-Armenian and Algerian.
When Gérald met Suella… they had a great deal to talk about and a great deal in common.
Darmanin and Braverman are both on the right of the right wing of their governments. Both are politicians of immigrant origin. Both take a hard line on immigration.
Hypocrites? Maybe. When it comes to migration, as a former French interior minister said this week, there is bad faith on all sides. Everyone is partly right and everyone is partly wrong.
READ ALSO: How is France going to spend the €72 million to prevent Channel crossings?
Migrants or asylum seekers have very good reasons to seek new lives in foreign countries. Governments have good reasons to control the numbers of people crossing their borders.
The right-wing media, in both France and the UK, may be right to say that some of them are illegal, economic migrants. But the right-wing media has equally little sympathy with genuine asylum-seekers who are fleeing war or religious or political oppression.
The French government now finds itself facing two ways on migration. Does that make Darmanin and President Emmanuel Macron two-faced? Inconsistent, certainly.
Looking north, Paris has agreed to step up its efforts to prevent migrants/asylum seekers from reaching Britain by sea.
Looking south, Paris has lambasted the new Far-Right-led government in Rome for refusing to allow a boat full of migrants to land in Italy.
Last week Macron abandoned long-standing French policy and allowed the Ocean Viking, with 230 migrants aboard, including the very young and the very sick, to land in Toulon. The Right and Far Right opposition in France accused him of being weak or “pro-migration”.
Once a single migrant ship is allowed to land in France, they said, other ships will follow. The critics are probably right. What would they have done in Macron’s place? Allowed the sick migrants to die?
The Italians say that they refused the Ocean Viking because they have already received 100,000 migrants or asylum seekers in 2022. It is time, they say, for other EU countries to share more of the burden.
France points out that roughly the same number of illegal migrants crosses its land borders unseen every year. Many of them cross from Italy.
READ ALSO: What is France doing to prevent migrant crossing to the UK?
And so it goes on…
On Monday, Suella Braverman and Gérald Darmanin signed a new Franco-British agreement – the fourth in three years – to discourage migrants or asylum seekers from crossing the most dangerous narrow sea strait in the world in flimsy dinghies.
The number of French police deployed will increase from 800 to 900. New drones will be purchased to fly over the many kilometres of beaches and sand dunes between Calais and the Belgian border.
British officials will be allowed to sit in French control rooms and French officials will be allowed to sit in British control rooms. Information on smuggling gangs will be exchanged (something that the UK bizarrely refused to do under Priti Patel, another Home Secretary of immigrant origin).
Holding camps for British-bound migrants will be created, 700 kilometres away in the south of France. Britain will pay Euros 72.2m to France to help pay for the cost of policing the Pas de Calais coast in 2022-3 – bringing the total to Euros 200m in the last four years.
The UK tabloid press moans (once again) about “British taxpayers’ money” being used to pay French police. French taxpayers have spent four times that amount since 2018 to defend Britain’s borders.
The Braverman-Darmanin plan is a welcome improvement on the counter-productive French-bashing of the Johnson years.
It may somewhat reduce the small boat crossings, which have all but doubled this year to 42,000
But the Calais problem will not be “solved”. It cannot be solved while the demand for migration to the UK exists; while the UK blocks all legal asylum routes; while the French and UK governments block other illegal routes; and while millions of euros can be made by smuggling gangs.
The French and UK governments have, in a sense, created the problem themselves.
The Calais “crisis” has been going on for three decades with a changing cast of migrants, from Bosnians to Afghans to Iranians to Kurds to Eritreans to Albanians. Every war or political repression or economic crisis on the Eurasia-African land mass has brought a new wave of refugees to the Channel Coast.
The majority of illegal migrants who enter France each year are French-speaking, have connections in France and want to stay in France.
A large minority enters France to try to reach the UK. They speak some English. They have family in the UK. They believe that it is easier to find work in the black economy in Britain because there are no identity cards.
Until 2018, the dangerous small-boat method of crossing the straits of Dover was little used. It was the gradual blocking by France and Britain of illegal ferry and train crossings which created a new, business opportunity for people-trafficking gangs.
It now costs around Euros 3,500 for a place in a dinghy. One gang which was smashed by Europol in July had made a Euros 3.5m profit in a year.
What is the solution? There is no solution but there are ways that the migrant “crisis” could be managed more humanely.
There is soon to be an EU-plus-UK ministerial meeting to discuss asylum policy and action against the continentally-organised people smuggling gangs.
Several EU countries have already offered to take the majority of the Ocean Viking migrants who have reasonable asylum claims. (Another 40 or so will be sent home).
Italy wants migrants to be vetted in North Africa and the genuine asylum seekers to be shared between EU counties. Similarly, Paris wants Britain to allow the vetting of would-be UK asylum seekers in France.
The UK government, fearful of the media reaction, refuses. This is foolish. Britain should vet the migrants on the French side of the Channel so long as France accepts that anyone who crosses illegally can be sent back.
We need an outbreak of realism, honesty and cooperation between European countries - Britain included. What hope of that?
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The British Home Secretary, the daughter of migrants from Mauritius and Kenya, came to Paris this week to meet the French interior minister, whose parents are partly Maltese-Armenian and Algerian.
When Gérald met Suella… they had a great deal to talk about and a great deal in common.
Darmanin and Braverman are both on the right of the right wing of their governments. Both are politicians of immigrant origin. Both take a hard line on immigration.
Hypocrites? Maybe. When it comes to migration, as a former French interior minister said this week, there is bad faith on all sides. Everyone is partly right and everyone is partly wrong.
READ ALSO: How is France going to spend the €72 million to prevent Channel crossings?
Migrants or asylum seekers have very good reasons to seek new lives in foreign countries. Governments have good reasons to control the numbers of people crossing their borders.
The right-wing media, in both France and the UK, may be right to say that some of them are illegal, economic migrants. But the right-wing media has equally little sympathy with genuine asylum-seekers who are fleeing war or religious or political oppression.
The French government now finds itself facing two ways on migration. Does that make Darmanin and President Emmanuel Macron two-faced? Inconsistent, certainly.
Looking north, Paris has agreed to step up its efforts to prevent migrants/asylum seekers from reaching Britain by sea.
Looking south, Paris has lambasted the new Far-Right-led government in Rome for refusing to allow a boat full of migrants to land in Italy.
Last week Macron abandoned long-standing French policy and allowed the Ocean Viking, with 230 migrants aboard, including the very young and the very sick, to land in Toulon. The Right and Far Right opposition in France accused him of being weak or “pro-migration”.
Once a single migrant ship is allowed to land in France, they said, other ships will follow. The critics are probably right. What would they have done in Macron’s place? Allowed the sick migrants to die?
The Italians say that they refused the Ocean Viking because they have already received 100,000 migrants or asylum seekers in 2022. It is time, they say, for other EU countries to share more of the burden.
France points out that roughly the same number of illegal migrants crosses its land borders unseen every year. Many of them cross from Italy.
READ ALSO: What is France doing to prevent migrant crossing to the UK?
And so it goes on…
On Monday, Suella Braverman and Gérald Darmanin signed a new Franco-British agreement – the fourth in three years – to discourage migrants or asylum seekers from crossing the most dangerous narrow sea strait in the world in flimsy dinghies.
The number of French police deployed will increase from 800 to 900. New drones will be purchased to fly over the many kilometres of beaches and sand dunes between Calais and the Belgian border.
British officials will be allowed to sit in French control rooms and French officials will be allowed to sit in British control rooms. Information on smuggling gangs will be exchanged (something that the UK bizarrely refused to do under Priti Patel, another Home Secretary of immigrant origin).
Holding camps for British-bound migrants will be created, 700 kilometres away in the south of France. Britain will pay Euros 72.2m to France to help pay for the cost of policing the Pas de Calais coast in 2022-3 – bringing the total to Euros 200m in the last four years.
The UK tabloid press moans (once again) about “British taxpayers’ money” being used to pay French police. French taxpayers have spent four times that amount since 2018 to defend Britain’s borders.
The Braverman-Darmanin plan is a welcome improvement on the counter-productive French-bashing of the Johnson years.
It may somewhat reduce the small boat crossings, which have all but doubled this year to 42,000
But the Calais problem will not be “solved”. It cannot be solved while the demand for migration to the UK exists; while the UK blocks all legal asylum routes; while the French and UK governments block other illegal routes; and while millions of euros can be made by smuggling gangs.
The French and UK governments have, in a sense, created the problem themselves.
The Calais “crisis” has been going on for three decades with a changing cast of migrants, from Bosnians to Afghans to Iranians to Kurds to Eritreans to Albanians. Every war or political repression or economic crisis on the Eurasia-African land mass has brought a new wave of refugees to the Channel Coast.
The majority of illegal migrants who enter France each year are French-speaking, have connections in France and want to stay in France.
A large minority enters France to try to reach the UK. They speak some English. They have family in the UK. They believe that it is easier to find work in the black economy in Britain because there are no identity cards.
Until 2018, the dangerous small-boat method of crossing the straits of Dover was little used. It was the gradual blocking by France and Britain of illegal ferry and train crossings which created a new, business opportunity for people-trafficking gangs.
It now costs around Euros 3,500 for a place in a dinghy. One gang which was smashed by Europol in July had made a Euros 3.5m profit in a year.
What is the solution? There is no solution but there are ways that the migrant “crisis” could be managed more humanely.
There is soon to be an EU-plus-UK ministerial meeting to discuss asylum policy and action against the continentally-organised people smuggling gangs.
Several EU countries have already offered to take the majority of the Ocean Viking migrants who have reasonable asylum claims. (Another 40 or so will be sent home).
Italy wants migrants to be vetted in North Africa and the genuine asylum seekers to be shared between EU counties. Similarly, Paris wants Britain to allow the vetting of would-be UK asylum seekers in France.
The UK government, fearful of the media reaction, refuses. This is foolish. Britain should vet the migrants on the French side of the Channel so long as France accepts that anyone who crosses illegally can be sent back.
We need an outbreak of realism, honesty and cooperation between European countries - Britain included. What hope of that?
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