No10 blasts Macron over Rwanda jibe
DOWNING Street and senior politicians hit back at Emmanuel Macron yesterday, after the French president said sending migrants to Africa was the “geopolitics of cynicism”.
Mr Macron’s sideswipe at Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda policy came as the PM’s landmark Bill was made law.
In a speech on Europe’s future, Mr Macron said: “I do not believe in this model that some people want to put in place which means that you go and look for a third country, for example in Africa, and take people who arrived illegally on our soil there who don’t come from that country.
Distasteful
“This will create a geopolitics of cynicism that is a betrayal of our values. It will create new dependencies and will prove totally ineffective.”
No10 replied: “Our approach is the right one. Indeed, we’ve seen other partners and other countries around the world also explore similar options”.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said “lazy criticism” of the Rwanda scheme was “distasteful”. He visited the Italian port of Lampedusa on Wednesday to see how officials there dealt with migrant arrivals.
Former home secretary, Dame Priti Patel, said: “President Macron is clearly worried that our partnership with Rwanda will mean that fewer migrants will attempt to cross the Channel and he will need to take responsibility for dealing with their asylum applications and the criminal gangs that are running rife in France.”
Meanwhile, a fourth person has been held on suspicion of immigration offences after five people, including a child, died trying to cross the Channel off northern France on Tuesday.
The National Crime Agency said an 18-year-old Sudanese was arrested at Manston migrant processing centre in Kent. Officers had also detained two 22-year-old men from Sudan and South Sudan.
A 19-year-old Sudanese man who was arrested has been released from custody and is being dealt with by immigration authorities.