Migrant Camp Reportedly Being Torn Down by French Police Amid Simmering UK-France Channel Row
11:18 GMT 30.11.2021 (Updated: 15:17 GMT 28.05.2023)
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Illegal migrant crossings by boat from France via the English Channel have been an increasingly acute source of friction, as London officials deplore that not enough is being done by Paris to stop the boats, while the French side says Britain should offer more help in managing asylum seekers and stopping traffickers.
A makeshift camp flanking a disused railway line near the northern French port of Dunkirk that has been housing scores of migrants was being dismantled by police on Tuesday, reported Reuters. Armed officers reportedly entered the camp, followed by workers wearing protective suits, and began tearing down tents and plastic shelters.
According to a charity worker, evictions are regularly taking place, with migrants being taken to holding centres and advised to file for asylum. Large numbers of these migrants are apparently returning to France's northern coast.
Migrants get warm around a brazier in the migrants camp of Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk
© AFP 2023 / PHILIPPE HUGUEN
This comes against the backdrop of a simmering UK-France row over Channel crossings, which have surged this year to a record 25,000-plus, according to Home Office figures. The data for November has already reached 6,665, with the last daily record set on 12 November, when 1,185 people made the crossing in a single day.
France wants the UK to reach a post-Brexit pact with the European Union on how to deal with migrants trying to cross the English Channel illegally, its interior minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday.
"What we want to promote is an accord between the EU and the UK… This cannot be simply an agreement on readmissions," Gerald Darmanin told a news conference on 29 November, adding that France would seek a "balanced" deal regulating a joint response to illegal migration.
“An agreement that would open up legal ways of migrating to Britain... We note that there are 30,000 asylum applications in the UK, in France, there are 150,000. The UK is not taking its share,” he underscored.
Darmanin told reporters that French Prime Minister Jean Castex would write on Tuesday to his UK counterpart, Boris Johnson, to lay out his vision of the proposed agreement, including legal routes to Britain and the transfer of unaccompanied minors.
“We can then start — if the British want — an open discussion and we can meet this week,” emphasised Darmanin.
Channel Tragedy Fuels Blame Game
This comes as last week’s disaster in the English Channel prompted British and French government officials to lay the blame on one another. A total of 27 migrants who were attempting to reach Britain’s shores died on 24 November when their inflatable dinghy sank just a few miles off the French port of Calais, among them one pregnant woman, in the deadliest day of the ongoing Channel crisis.
French police officers patrol on the beach in the searcher migrants in Wimereux, northern France, Wednesday, Nov.17, 2021. Several migrants died and others were injured Wednesday Nov.24, 2021 when their boat capsized off Calais in the English Channel as they tried to cross from France to Britain, authorities said. British and French authorities were searching the area using helicopters and coast guard vessels, according to the French maritime agency for the region.
© AP Photo / Louis Witter
Boris Johnson on 25 November announced that he had sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron outlining a set of measures to avoid further deaths in the water. The PM's proposal included more joint patrols to prevent boats leaving the French coast, improved intelligence sharing, and striking a bilateral return agreement.
My letter to President Macron. pic.twitter.com/vXH0jpxzPo
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 25, 2021
However, following the publication of Bojo's open letter, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin barred his British counterpart Priti Patel from a multilateral Calais migrant summit, while denouncing Johnson's public letter as "unacceptable" and "disappointing."
A group of more than 40 migrants react as they succeeded to get on an inflatable dinghy, to leave the coast of northern France and to cross the English Channel, near Wimereux, France, November 24, 2021.
© REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes
The French interior minister yet again pinned the blame for the Channel crossings on the UK, insisting that asylum seekers were "attracted by England, especially the labour market, which means you can work in England without any identification."
Darmanin on Monday rejected the UK-mulled idea of French and British forces patrolling the English Channel together, saying that the French were "not the subcontractors of the British government." "Can you imagine French policemen on British beaches?" he queried at a press conference.
French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune fed into the inflammatory rhetoric, saying that migrants were drawn to the UK because they can work illegally in what he described as “an economic model that is sometimes quasi-modern slavery."
The option of “pushbacks” at sea, once mentioned by the UK, was also rejected by the French Interior Minister, who added:
“We cannot change our geography, so we need to come to an understanding with our British friends and allies even though they have chosen to leave Europe… The common interest of Europe and the UK is to work together to try to solve this problem.”
