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Another dispute breaks out between London and Paris – not over fishing rights but over migrants. More and more of them are trying to cross the English Channel. And more and more lose their lives in these attempts.
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London / Paris – The French police officers saw a desolate picture on Thursday morning when they discovered a rubber dinghy filled with water in Wissant near Calais. Next to it were two completely hypothermic men sitting in the wet sand. Next to them a third party – dead.
The night before, the French Navy, the Coast Guard and the Sea Rescue had attacked almost 300 immigrants in mortal danger with helicopters and ships. Despite the treacherous currents, they had tried to cross the strait at least 28 kilometers wide in makeshift boats. The rubber boats often capsize or sink. That resulted in a second death this week. A third migrant is considered missing. An Eritrean was also hit and killed by a regional train outside Calais on Thursday.
Several thousand migrants are waiting in the hinterland
In the hinterland of Calais, several thousand migrants are currently waiting to cross the canal at night. In 2016, the French police evacuated a wild camp with almost 10,000 migrants, the so-called “jungle”. Now the numbers are rising sharply again. According to French sources, 20,000 migrants have reached the British Channel coast since the beginning of the year.
The new situation in Calais can be explained by the increasing tensions in Africa and the Middle East, but also by Brexit: the British government has since tightened controls on the canal ferries and on the train through the Eurotunnel. The dangerous crossing in the “small boats” – so the jargon – is the only way to get to the supposedly praised England.
The British and the French are blaming each other
The British and the French are blaming each other for the dramatic situation. London accuses Paris of disregarding the bilateral Le Touquet agreement concluded before Brexit, according to which the French are supposed to prevent migrants from crossing the coast; For this purpose, London is supplying kilometers of metal grids and financially contributing to the coastal surveillance. The French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, on the other hand, has been accusing the British for weeks of failing to meet their obligations.
The British-French migration conflict goes even deeper than the recent, unsolved fisheries dispute in the western part of the English Channel. The British government suspects that the French are deliberately letting as many migrants as possible across the channel in order to take revenge for Brexit and to demonstrate its allegedly negative consequences. The London news portal Politico recently quoted a letter from French Prime Minister Jean Castex, who urged EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “to show that it is more harmful to leave the EU than to stay in it”.
300 to 400 kilometers of coastline are to be monitored
The French MP Pierre-Henri Dumont, on the other hand, said on the BBC: “We have to monitor 300 to 400 kilometers of coastline day and night and cannot put a gendarme every 100 meters. To make matters worse, the two main protagonists are under massive domestic political pressure in their homeland – Boris Johnson, because the pressure of migration on the canal has increased despite stricter immigration law; and Emmanuel Macron, because he is already being attacked domestically before the upcoming presidential elections, he is not doing anything against the migrants in Calais and for the fishermen in Normandy, is the allegation. “In general,” etched right-winger and unexplained presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, “England won the Brexit battle”.
Macron accuses Johnson of breach of contract
Macron accused Johnson very directly in the Financial Times for not adhering to the contracts and for lacking “credibility”. The regional newspaper L’Est Républicain even commented that the British were “our best enemies” after they had betrayed France during the submarine crisis.
Former Ambassador to Paris, Sir Peter Ricketts, said this week it was “disconcerting” to see how badly relations between France and the Kingdom had deteriorated. “Johnson, Macron, stop the fire!” Ricketts appealed to both sides.
To deter migrants and “regain control of the borders”, as Boris Johnson put it, the British have fewer options. Home Secretary Priti Patel examined the “turn away” tactic used by British ships to push migrant boats away; but as their French counterpart Darmanin explained, this would violate international maritime law.
Macron himself advocates a revision of European asylum law so that migrants can be checked when they enter the EU and do not even get to Calais. Politically, however, this does not seem to be feasible any more than the British “turn away”. The situation on the English Channel will not ease that quickly.
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