Migrant deaths inflame France-UK acrimony
Squabble slows push to curb risky channel crossings
LONDON — At times, the quarrels between Britain and France can seem trivial and more than a little petulant. But the latest round of recrimination, following the tragic deaths of at least 27 migrants in a flimsy inflatable boat off the French coast, puts the two countries at odds on one of the thorniest issues they face.
The rising number of migrants risking their lives to cross the English Channel is both a humanitarian crisis and a complex law enforcement challenge. Experts say it will not be helped by the acrimonious back-and-forth between French and British officials that led France on Friday to rescind an invitation for Britain’s home secretary, Priti Patel, to attend an emergency meeting on the crisis.
Rather than working together to curb these hazardous sea journeys, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Emmanuel Macron almost immediately fell into a familiar pattern: questioning each other’s motives, seeking to score political points and casting blame for an intractable global problem that afflicts both their countries.
The charges and countercharges threatened to plunge relations between Britain and France into an even deeper freeze, after a series of disputes over fishing rights, a ruptured submarine alliance and the future of Northern Ireland. Rather than being drawn together by Wednesday’s disaster, one of the deadliest ever in the English Channel, the two neighbors were being pulled further apart.
“This is a different order of magnitude because it concerns human lives and because it’s politically explosive for both sides,” said Peter Ricketts, a former British ambassador to France. “It’s a much bigger issue, and I don’t see how you can get to a reset in the relationship until you solve this.”
The problem, Ricketts and others said, is that France, with a steady stream of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and a lengthy coastline to police, will never be able to prevent every migrant from reaching Britain. The best the two can hope for is a sharply reduced flow, and even that would require a degree of cooperation that seems wishful thinking in the current strained atmosphere.
Despite the anti-immigrant fervor stoked by Brexit, Britain continues to attract migrants because of its English language — which many have some command of — and because it does not have national ID cards, which makes it easier for people without legal status to work.
The latest diplomatic eruption came after Johnson sent — and immediately posted on Twitter — a letter to Macron in which he blamed the crisis on France and proposed that it commit to taking back all asylum-seekers who make it to Britain, a suggestion the French have already rejected multiple times.
Macron, who had discussed the crisis with Johnson earlier by phone, reacted acidly. “You don’t communicate from one leader to another on these issues by tweets and by letters that you make public,” he said.
Other French officials were even more withering. They said Johnson’s letter did not match what he and Macron had discussed and suggested he was exploiting the crisis for domestic political gain. They flatly rejected the proposal that France take back asylum-seekers from Britain.
France’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, then announced that Patel was no longer invited to a meeting that France will hold in Calais on Sunday with ministers in charge of immigration from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission.
Diplomats said that for Britain not to have a seat at the table made little sense since the cross-channel traffic is central to the problem. It was also a discouraging sign, they said, of how badly relations between the two countries had deteriorated.
British officials said they hoped France would reconsider its decision. A spokesman for the government said Johnson wrote the letter “in the spirit of partnership and cooperation” and posted it in the interests of transparency.
But British diplomats said the letter seemed calculated to provoke the French and would further fray a relationship between Johnson and Macron that was already marked by mutual mistrust.
For both leaders, the political pressures are only likely to increase. Macron, who is running for reelection in May, faces a challenge from the nationalist right.
For Johnson, images of migrants in makeshift dinghies landing on the shores of Kent could erode his support among voters who backed him in 2019 on the promise that Brexit would enable Britain to control its borders. It adds to the perception of a government adrift at a time when the Conservative Party is dealing with a corruption scandal and economic disruptions caused by Brexit and the pandemic.