Status: 14.11.2022 12:08 p.m
With a new agreement, France and Great Britain want to prevent migrants from crossing the English Channel. The contract provides for drones, sniffer dogs and additional security personnel.
Almost a year after the worst-ever accident involving a boat carrying migrants in the English Channel, leaving 27 dead and missing, France and Great Britain have signed a comprehensive migration agreement. Up to 350 additional security guards, drones and sniffer dogs are envisaged to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel.
According to the signed agreement, Great Britain wants to pay France around 72 million euros for this. For the first time, observers are to be deployed on both sides of the English Channel in order to question migrants and better combat smuggling networks. The number of police officers deployed on the northern French coast will be increased by 40 percent, and new surveillance technology will also be used.
40,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel so far
According to the UK Home Office, more than 40,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel since the beginning of the year, a new high. Last year it was about 28,500. Last weekend alone, around 1,200 people attempted the dangerous crossing.
In particular, both countries want to target illegal entries from Albania. According to British figures, almost a third of the migrants who cross the English Channel come from there. Many migrants want to continue to England because they speak the language or already have relatives and friends there. Many also think that it is easier to find work there without a residence permit.
Rishi Sunak has a tough immigration policy
The agreement was signed by French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and his British counterpart Suella Braverman. Both are under pressure in their countries not to do enough to stop migrants crossing from France to England. In the agreement, France also commits to setting up more contact points for migrants in southern France to discourage refugees coming across the Mediterranean from continuing their journey to Calais and to offer them safe alternatives.
New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, himself grandson of Indian immigrants, takes a hard line on immigration policy. He supports the plan to deport migrants to the East African country of Rwanda – regardless of their asylum status. However, the European Court of Human Rights had canceled a first planned flight at short notice. Since then, the judiciary has been examining whether the plan is legal.
France wants to make deportations easier
For its part, the French government intends to introduce a new migration law at the beginning of 2023, which should make deportations easier. Britain and France have been at odds over how to deal with migrants crossing the English Channel for decades. After fierce conflicts during British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s term in office, both countries want to get closer again under the new British Prime Minister Sunak.