Relations are strained even more between France and Great Britain. Home Secretary Gerald Darmanin canceled the attendance of his British counterpart, Priti Patel, at the meeting scheduled for Sunday on the migrants’ file, in response to Boris Johnson’s remarks asking France to take back the immigrants arriving from the other side of the Channel.
In a message to Priti Patel which AFP learned of on Friday, Gérald Darmanin believes that if the letter from the British Prime Minister to French President Emmanuel Macron is a “disappointment”, the fact of having made this letter public is “worse” Again. Consequently, Gérald Darmanin cancels the visit of Priti Patel.
“Ineligible”
Thursday evening, Boris Johnson asked France to take back the migrants who would have arrived illegally in Great Britain to solve the migration problem, a few hours after an invitation from Paris to a meeting on Sunday on this subject in Calais. The ministers responsible for Belgian, German, Dutch and British immigration were invited, as well as the European Commission.
My letter to President Macron. pic.twitter.com/vXH0jpxzPo
– Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 25, 2021
“We consider the British Prime Minister’s public letter to be inadmissible and contrary to our discussions among counterparts. Consequently, Priti Patel is no longer invited to the interministerial meeting on Sunday which is maintained in the format: France / Belgium / Netherlands / Germany / European Commission ”, commented in the entourage of Gerald Darmanin.
“It is a letter that is fundamentally indigent because it does not respect all the work that is done by our coast guards, our police officers, our gendarmes, our rescuers at sea,” said the government spokesperson, Gabriel Attal, on BFMTV and RMC. He said 7,800 migrants had been rescued from drowning in the English Channel since the start of the year.
In addition, this letter “proposes this” relocation “agreement, this is obviously not what we need to solve this problem,” added Gabriel Attal. “What we would need is for the British to send us protection officers to examine the asylum requests which concern them from French territory,” he lamented.
This dispute comes less than two days after the sinking of a ship off Calais, which resulted in the deaths of 27 migrants.