Macron calls for MORE funding from the UK to stop the crossing of the Channel
- A longer-term multi-million pound deal will aim to boost French beach patrols
- Channel migrants will be top of the agenda at tomorrow’s Anglo-French summit
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an increase in UK funding to stop the Channel crossing.
London and Paris are in talks over a long-term multi-million pound deal to boost French beach patrols, surveillance and agents to crack down on human trafficking gangs.
It comes ahead of an Anglo-French summit in Paris tomorrow between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Mr Macron, where Channel migrants will be at the top of the agenda.
It is the first bilateral summit between France and Britain in five years and both sides are trying to rebuild relations after the squabbles over Channel migrants, post-Brexit trade deals and the Aukus submarine deal with Australia.
Elysee Palace sources say both sides are trying to reach a “multi-year financing framework” that would put cooperation on a stable footing and allow “better planning of our actions.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an increase in UK funding to stop the Channel crossing
Prime Minister wants a ‘substantial’ increase in beach patrols amid fears more than 80,000 migrants could cross the Channel this year
However, the summit is in danger of being overshadowed after Brussels said yesterday it believes Interior Minister Suella Braverman’s new immigration law to crack down on small boats violates international law.
Ylva Johansson, the European Union’s top home affairs official, told Braverman that Britain is about to breach its international obligations.
She told the Politico website: “I spoke to the British minister about this yesterday and I told her I think this is against international law.”
It threatens to cast a shadow over the talks if Macron says the same thing.
The prime minister wants a ‘substantial’ increase in beach patrols amid fears that more than 80,000 migrants could cross the Channel this year.
So far, 3,000 have reached the UK, following a record 45,000 last year.
Tomorrow’s summit follows last November’s £63m deal in which the UK paid for a 40 per cent increase in French officers, as well as drones, buggies and surveillance equipment.
Both sides agree that doubling the number of migrants prevented from leaving the beaches to 80 or 90 percent would break the smugglers’ economic model by making crossing impossible.