Barnier Says France Has to 'Be Ruthless With the British' Amid Migrant Crisis - Report

Former EU Brexit negotiator and now a potential center-right candidate in the French presidential election Nichekl Barnier has supported enacting countermeasures against the UK and deporting asylum-seekers across the English Channel.

In a Friday interview, Barnier accused the UK of violating the Brexit agreement and leaving the EU and France with no choice but to devise retaliation tactics, including France's possible withdrawal from the Treaty of Touquet, which governs Anglo-French border relations.

He also accused British Prime Minister Boris Johnson of a provocation in regard to his recent letter to French leader Emmanuel Macron, in which Johnson urged Paris to reach a bilateral readmission deal allowing migrants who crossed the English Channel to be returned to France.

"This is obviously an additional provocation from Boris Johnson, who is in a state of mind of confrontation on all subjects with the European Union," he said while discussing several ongoing issues with the UK. "We talk about fishing and fishermen but also about the very serious problem of peace in Ireland where they went back on their commitments and their word. And on this very serious question, which deserves much more than polemics and confrontations, the question of migrants and how to deal intelligently with this human question."

According to Barnier, this state of affairs and London's reaction were "absolutely inadmissible."

"I find this frankly absolutely inadmissible. What you don't need is confrontation, it's to sit down at the table and find solutions," he stated.

Barnier noted that "you have to be ruthless with the British" in matters such as this one.

In particular, France should request the British side to "welcome all migrants who want to come to the UK and not elsewhere, and to process asylum applications" on their own territory.

Moreover, Barnier stated that "retaliatory measures and compensatory measures", ranging from tariffs on British goods to "controlling more British ships", should come in place as a backlash for violating elements of the Brexit agreement, adding that the EU can "cross-suspend parts of the agreement."

"You have an agreement. You have a very precise, extremely precise agreement and it is not respected by London," Barnier noted. "It is London that is responsible and therefore the one who takes serious responsibilities for the future relations that we are going to have. And I, if I am President of the Republic, am going to have with this great country, friend and neighbor, and the European Union is going to have."

Both the UK and France have immigration control points at Dover and Calais, as per the conditions of the 2003 treaty on migration. The UK is in charge of funding and maintaining security at its northern French border crossings. In exchange, France must prevent migrants from entering the UK illegally.

France has repeatedly protested the British border with continental Europe being managed by them in practice. They further allege that as a result of the treaty, large numbers of migrants have built up camps near Britain's ports on French soil.

Johnson Proposes to Have All Migrants Who Cross Channel to Be Immediately Returned to France

25 November 2021, 21:13 GMT

Macron, who has had a running feud with Johnson over a variety of issues including fishing rights, claimed that the PM's open letter was a breach of French sovereignty. He retaliated by excluding Priti Patel, the UK Home Secretary, from vital migrant crisis negotiations.

The migrant crisis between the EU and the UK has already exceeded the absolute figures of the last few years in terms of the number of illegal immigrants trying to enter the UK. According to official estimates, more than 25,600 persons unlawfully crossed from France to the United Kingdom in 2021, which is more than triple the level of the previous year.