Macron: Send us more Calais patrol funds
FReNCh President emmanuel Macron has called for a hike in funding from the UK to stop Channel crossings.
London and Paris are in talks about a longer term multi-million pound deal to boost French beach patrols, surveillance and officers to smash trafficking gangs.
It comes ahead of an Anglo-French summit in Paris tomorrow between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Mr Macron, where Channel migrants will be top of the agenda.
It is the first bilateral summit between France and Britain for five years and both sides are looking to repair relations after bruising rows about Channel migrants, post-Brexit trading agreements and the Aukus submarine deal with Australia.
elysee Palace sources say both sides are trying to strike a ‘multi-annual financing framework’ that would put cooperation on a stable footing and allow to ‘better plan our actions’.
however, the summit threatens to be overshadowed after Brussels yesterday said it believes home Secretary Suella Braverman’s new immigration Bill to tackle small boats breaks international law.
Ylva Johansson, the european Union’s top home affairs official, said she told Ms Braverman that Britain is poised to breach its international obligations. She told the Politico website: ‘I spoke to the British minister yesterday on this and I told her that I think that this is violating international law.’ It threatens to cast a shadow over talks if Mr Macron says the same.
The PM wants a ‘substantial’ increase in beach patrols amid fears that more than 80,000 migrants could cross the Channel this year. So far 3,000 have reached the UK following a record 45,000 last year.
Tomorrow’s summit follows last November’s £63million agreement under which the UK paid towards a 40 per cent increase in French officers as well as drones, buggies and surveillance equipment.
Both sides agree that doubling the numbers of migrants prevented from leaving the beaches to 80 or 90 per cent would break the people smugglers’ economic model by making crossings unviable.