Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

FRANCE AND UK

France-UK stepping up efforts to halt migrant crossings: Cleverly

Britain and France will step up efforts to halt crossings of the English Channel by migrants in small boats, after figures showed more than 1,000 people had made the crossing in January

Published: 31 January 2024 09:18 CET

France-UK stepping up efforts to halt migrant crossings: Cleverly

Rescuers help migrants on a semi-rigid boat trying make their way from France across the English Channel. (AFP PHOTO / SNSM)

British Home Secretary James Cleverly held talks in Paris with French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, with both politicians welcoming news that increased cooperation led to a 36 percent reduction in crossings last year.

But latest figures from the UK Home Office have shown more than 1,000 people crossed in January from France to England, with 276 making the journey on the final Sunday of the month.

“We will expand upon that work even more closely still to break this evil business model of people smugglers,” Clevery told AFP, adding the figures for January were, “not what any of us want to see.”

But he added the reduction in 2023 “cannot be explained away by the weather, it really is a sign of the excellent and close working relationship that we have with France.”

“I’m very keen to continue the excellent working relationship with Interior Minister Darmanin and with the French authorities more generally.”

A statement from the UK Home Office said both sides had agreed to “accelerate delivery” of an agreement between Paris and London from March 2023 to step up cooperation.

This move will “expedite deployment” of key aerial surveillance equipment, “ensuring unprecedented levels of coverage to enable French law enforcement to intercept crossing attempts as quickly as possible,” it said.

The perilous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes have become a political headache for Britain’s Conservative government, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowing last year to “stop the boats”.

Under the deal agreed between Sunak and President Emmanuel Macron in March 2023, London is stepping up funding to France to a total of €541 million up to 2026.

This was aimed at allowing the deployment of hundreds of extra French law enforcement officers along the Channel coast to stop the migrants taking to sea in the first place.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

'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.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!