UK: French have surrendered to traffickers
BRITAIN has accused the French of “ceding sovereign territory to criminal people smugglers” by allowing a record 1,000 Channel migrants to reach the UK in a single day.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is said to be furious at the “go slow” on intercepting migrant boats amid tensions with France over fishing rights and the Northern Ireland protocol.
The French stopped just “a couple of boats” yesterday as the number of migrants crossing in a day was expected to pass the 1,000 mark for the first time.
More than 3,500 migrants crossed the Channel in the first 11 days of November with the French intercepting fewer than 30 per cent despite Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, pledging a 100 per cent rate in return for the UK’S £54 million to fund counter-measures.
A Whitehall source said: “Today the French government failed in their duty to protect life and to uphold the joint agreement to stop small boats leaving France. They let hundreds of people potentially set sail to their death whilst only stopping a couple of boats.
“They appear to have ceded sovereign territory to criminal people smugglers. This abject failure will be raised in the strongest possible terms with
‘The French failed in their duty to protect life and to uphold the joint agreement to stop small boats leaving’
Gerald Darmanin and the French government.” Ministers fear the crisis has become entangled in rows over fishing rights, the protocol and the Aukus submarine pact, which saw Paris lose a €1 billion contract with Australia.
A government source said efforts by the French to stop the boats seemed “to be going backwards. We are tied up in much bigger diplomacy. That’s one of the problems. There’s all the stuff with fishing and the NI protocol and general Uk-french relations.” Asked if France was “going slow” because of that, the source said: “I can imagine that.”
A Border Force source compared the crossings yesterday to an “armada”, adding: “It’s bedlam out there today.”
The numbers have increased each day this week from 50 on Monday, to 504 on Tuesday, 703 on Wednesday and more than 1,000 yesterday.
As of Wednesday, the French had intercepted just 568 attempted crossings, less than three in 10. The total of 24,000 this year is nearly treble 2020’s.
The RNLI was heavily involved yesterday, rescuing the majority of the migrants and bringing them to safety, dispatching lifeboats from Ramsgate, Dover, Dungeness and Hastings.
One volunteer told The Daily Telegraph that volunteers were at “breaking point” after being called out repeatedly. “Our employers are starting to ask why we are never at work,” the volunteer said. “This should really be a job for the
Government, not the RNLI. What happens when there’s an emergency somewhere else? To be honest we are all completely knackered.”
Tony Smith, former head of the Border Force, accused the French of “turning a blind eye” to the deaths and criminal money-making.
He said it was “shameful” that the French were refusing to agree to joint patrols with the British to return the migrants to France.
He also accused the French of Brexit “spite” for resisting a new agreement to take back migrants who should have claimed asylum in a “safe” European country. “How much cash has been raised by organised crime groups in the process to fuel their illicit business models and cause more harm, at £5,000 a ride?” said Mr Smith.
“How many have drowned? The French government are turning a blind eye to this by rejecting joint patrols and safe third country returns.”
He claimed the crisis could be resolved if Mr Darmanin was willing to sit down with Ms Patel to negotiate a new bilateral agreement to take back migrants who had illegally reached the UK from France.
“This particular French government are not interested in sitting down with Priti Patel about this because they don’t want the migrants back,” he said. “They could quite easily come to a bilateral agreement to take back removals but I cannot find anyone on the French side who will do that. This is spite.
“The French government seems to feel that because we left the EU, we chose to drop out of the Dublin convention (where a country takes back migrants who previously passed through it), it’s your problem now.”
The criticism provoked a caustic response from Gen Frantz Tavart, who oversees the 130 gendarmes policing a 45-mile stretch of coastline that covers the Pas-de-calais region. He said: “The orders from French authorities are to be as effective as possible to try and intercept a maximum number of migrants.
“It would be as stupid to suggest we would open the migratory floodgates due to a fishing dispute as it would to suggest we shouldn’t turn out to commemorate the British soldiers who died on French soil on Armistice Day, which
‘French are not interested in sitting down with Patel about this because they don’t want the migrants back’
I did today in Arras.” The UK and France remain in dispute over whether British authorities are refusing to grant legitimate applications for fishing permits.
The increasingly bitter row prompted technical negotiations between UK and EU officials over whether the vessels should be allowed to fish in Britain’s coastal waters.
The Telegraph understands that “some limited progress” has been made in recent days and an announcement of up to four new permits could be imminent. There will be licences issued for boats to fish in both Britain and Jersey’s six to 12-mile coastal zones, an EU insider added.