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MIGRANT CRISIS

Migrant Channel crossings: What will France spend the €72.2 million euros on?

Britain has agreed to pay France another €72.2million to prevent migrant boat crossings under a new deal intended to improve cooperation between the two countries. But what the money actually be spent on?

Published: 14 November 2022 16:16 CET
Migrant Channel crossings: What will France spend the €72.2 million euros on?
Migrants move a smuggling boat into the water at Gravelines, near Dunkirk, northern France. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)

The arrangement will lead to a 40 percent increase in the number of patrols to detect boats before they set out to sea, with UK officers joining their French counterparts for the first time.

That means an additional 100 officers will be involved in operations.

For the first time, teams of observers will be deployed on both sides of the Channel to “strengthen common understanding”.

The latest agreement comes just over a year after a previous deal saw France increase the number of police officers, gendarmes and customs agents dedicated to patrol its northern coastline to 650, in return for €63million in UK funding. 

There is not much in the way of in-depth detail available at the moment, but the new deal reportedly includes an agreement for extra investment in port infrastructure in France, better use of technology, including drones, and “greater cross-Europe cooperation”, as well as better coordinated information-sharing and efforts to offer migrants help and assistance before they make the dangerous crossing.

And part of the funding will be available for reception and removal centres in France for migrants prevented from travelling to the UK, to further deter crossing attempts, a UK government statement said.

Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said, after signing the agreement with French opposite number Gérald Darmanin: “We must do everything we can to stop people making these dangerous journeys and crack down on the criminal gangs. 

“This is a global challenge requiring global solutions, and it is in the interests of both the UK and French governments to work together to solve this complex problem.”

READ ALSO What is France doing to prevent ‘illegal’ Channel crossings to UK?

Adopting a more cooperative tone to the rhetoric she has employed in the House of Commons, Braverman added: “There are no quick fixes, but this new arrangement will mean we can significantly increase the number of French gendarmes patrolling the beaches in northern France and ensure UK and French officers are working hand in hand to stop the people smugglers.”

Joint British and French collaboration has already prevented over 30,000 illegal crossing attempts since the beginning of 2022, according to official figures – a year-on-year increase of more than 50 percent compared to the number of attempts thwarted in 2021.

Despite these efforts, about 40,000 people – mostly Albanians, Iranians and Afghans – have crossed the Channel to England from France this year. That figure is well over last year’s 28,561, which was a thousand-fold increase from 2018 when migrants and asylum seekers first began sailing inflatables across one of the world’s busiest shipping channels.

The French government has previously said that the British government’s decision to close legal routes for people to apply for asylum from outside the UK is at least part of the problem, leaving them with little choice but to risk their lives in the Channel. 

They also claim that the lack of ID cards in the UK acts as a draw to people who believe it is easier to work illegally. The UK government rejects both these points.

On the Channel coast, doubts remain about whether incremental changes in the number of French officers patrolling the rugged dunes and wide beaches can reverse the rising tide of crossings.

Observers say the migrants’ boats are getting bigger, the tactics of smugglers more sophisticated, and departures are being recorded along a widening stretch of coastline.

Some 972 people were detected making the crossing on Saturday and 853 on Sunday during calm, sunny weather, according to UK figures.

The French coastguard is adamant that it cannot intercept boats once they are in the water because attempting to do so could cause them to capsize.

“I’ve watched so many British ministers over the years coming new to the problem and deciding that they are going to get a grip and somehow solve it,” former British ambassador to France, Peter Ricketts, told AFP.

“But they all end up falling back on the realisation that the only way to bring this under control is by working with the French,” he said.

“To their credit, the Sunak government has reached that conclusion quickly and today’s agreement is good news,” he added.

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ELECTIONS

‘Double border’ and ‘national priority’: French immigration under far right

The far-right party of Marine Le Pen has vowed to promote a policy of "national priority" and drastically curb what it calls uncontrolled immigration in order to "preserve French civilisation."

Published: 3 July 2024 17:54 CEST
'Double border' and 'national priority': French immigration under far right

If it wins an absolute majority in the second round of snap elections on Sunday, the Rassemblement National (RN) party said it would adopt an “emergency” law on immigration, but the constitution and European treaties would have to be revised for the party’s programme to be implemented.

Here AFP looks at some of the most controversial proposals of the party which is currently the most popular in France.

‘National priority’

The Rassemblement National’s top political pillar is the principle of “national preference” — now called “national priority”. It would limit welfare benefits to only French nationals.

In April, France’s Constitutional Council rejected a request by the centre-right Republicans party to hold a referendum on immigration, which would include a proposal to make access to some welfare benefits conditional on the length of residence in the country.

Disadvantaged people should not be deprived of France’s “policy of national solidarity,” said Laurent Fabius, the Socialist head of the Council. The principle of national preference was contrary to the constitution, he said.

READ MORE: What is ‘national preference’ for the French and how would it hurt foreigners?

‘Double border’

RN party leader Jordan Bardella, who will become prime minister at the age of 28 if it wins an absolute majority, has proposed the introduction of a “double border”.

The measure would tighten controls at the European Union’s external borders and impose the return of national border controls to reserve free movement within the Schengen zone to “European nationals only”, says the RN.

Yves Pascouau, a senior research associate at the Institut Jacques Delors, said that Europeans cannot be banned from entering France.

“The Schengen agreements establish freedom of movement,” he said, adding that calling a referendum or revising the constitution would not help.

“This goes beyond French matters — it’s the Schengen agreements that apply,” he said.

State medical aid

Under the RN, the AME, which guarantees free medical care to undocumented migrants who have resided in France for more than three months, would be replaced with a fund covering only life-threatening emergencies.

The 1946 constitution states that France will ensure to the individual and to the family the conditions necessary for their development and that it guarantees the protection of health for “all.”

“To completely restrict this state medical aid, or to abolish it with all the dangers for public health that this could create, is to ignore the constitutional imperative,” said Anne-Charlene Bezzina, an expert in public law.

Birthright principle

The RN wants to abolish France’s centuries-old principle of “droit du sol”, which grants French nationality to people born in France to foreign parents on certain conditions.

The far-right party says that only people born to at least one French parent should have automatic access to French nationality.

Others can make a request to obtain citizenship.

France has recently moved to revoke birthright citizenship in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte to stem migration.

Bezzina suggested that the restriction of “droit du sol” across France would not pass unless the constitution was revised.

“The acquisition of nationality is enshrined in an 1889 decree, and has been continuously applied,” she said.

Dual nationals

Ahead of the first round of parliamentary elections, Bardella sparked an outcry by saying his party wanted to ban dual nationals from holding jobs in a number of sensitive sectors such as security and defence. He said “very few people” would be affected.

Macron’s government has slammed the proposal, which violates the principle of equality.

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: The French far-right’s proposal to ban dual nationals from certain jobs

“The message that you send is dual nationals are half-nationals,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told Bardella in a tense debate in June.

The proposal opens up the possibility of “recourse before the European Court of Human Rights or the Council of State”, said Serge Slama, an expert in public law.

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