Meeting in Calais after the shipwreck, Paris: "Too many dead in the Channel, unacceptable"

• Tension in the Channel: French fishermen block the Eurotunnel for two hours

• Shipwreck in the Channel: among the dead a pregnant woman and 3 minors.

  Paris summons Europe

• Shipwreck of migrants in the English Channel, 27 dead

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November 28, 2021 "The dead are too many", "we cannot accept that there are others": said the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, at the opening this afternoon in Calais, in northern France, of the meeting with his counterparts from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium and with the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, and the directors of Europol and the European Borders Agency Frontex.

The meeting was called by France after the sinking of a boat loaded with migrants in the Channel last Wednesday. An accident that had caused the death of 27 people. "The most important point of this meeting - continued Darmanin - is the fight against smugglers who do not care about our borders and our countries" and who make "their trade pass before human lives".

The meeting is held without the presence of the British minister, Priti Patel. Darmanin has in fact canceled the invitation addressed to her in protest against a letter published Thursday evening on Twitter by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in which he asked Paris to take back the migrants arriving from France on the coasts of Great Britain.

A European plane from the Frontex agency will be deployed from 1 December to patrol the Channel area. The decision was announced by the French Interior Minister at the end of the Calais meeting.

"Britain must take its responsibilities and limit the economic attractiveness of its territory, and allow the request for legal asylum: today Britain must do its part," said Darmanin after the summit.

"We - added the French minister - want to work with our British friends and allies" and "this meeting was not anti-English but pro-European", he added, denouncing from London "declarations and public acts that do not facilitate the cooperation".

"We cannot speak from government to government via Twitter. We acknowledge that we still have a lot of work to improve relations between Britain and France in police cooperation. We have made requests to Great Britain that have sometimes not been answered."