France pushes for a new migration agreement between the EU and the UK

The number of migrants attempting to cross the Channel from France continues to grow.

Here near Dover, UK August 4, 2021 © Peter Nicholls, Reuters

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4 min

Faced with the absolute record of migrants attempting to cross the Channel, the French government wants a new migration agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

In an interview on Wednesday August 25, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs suggested that the 2003 Touquet agreements no longer do the trick, especially since Brexit.

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On Saturday August 21, more than 800 migrants attempted to

cross the Channel

 : a record for a single day,

according to the British Home Office

.

This situation is regularly a source of tension between London and Paris.

Migrants are more and more numerous in Calais, while waiting to be able to reach the English coasts.

This

complicates the work of aid workers and police checks

.

Because the Touquet agreements signed in 2003 were supposed to allow a regulation of these migratory flows.

These texts installed the Franco-British border and controls on the Opal Coast, in northern France, in return for funding from London.

Faced with this tension, the United Kingdom pledged at the end of July to pay more than 62 million euros to France, an amount that was to finance the strengthening of the presence of French law enforcement on the coasts. .

But for the French Secretary of State, this is not enough.

It is we who are paying a heavy price,

 " said Clément Beaune, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, during an interview for the CNews channel on Wednesday 25 August.

The British must take their responsibilities

 ", since according to him, it is the attractiveness of the United Kingdom that is in question.

According to him, the migration problem will only be resolved at European level,

especially since Brexit

.

We need to have, after Brexit, a new migration agreement, no doubt between the European Union and the United Kingdom,

 " he insisted, in order to transport migrants to the English coast in a secure manner.

See also

Asylum seekers: the United Kingdom is barricaded behind new legislation

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