Fix the Channel crisis? Be my guest, says Macron
French president blames tensions with Britain on a Government that ‘does not do what it says’
‘In Britain there is still an opaque system that has existed since the 1980s where the economic model relies on the illegal labour of foreigners’
EMMANUEL MACRON yesterday told Boris Johnson to “be my guest” in fixing the Channel migrant crisis as he blamed poor relations with Britain on a Government that “does not do what it says”.
After weeks of mudslinging between the two leaders over issues including fishing, migration and Northern Ireland, the French president was asked during a press conference at the Élysée Palace why things had got so bad.
“The problem with the British Government is that it does not do what it says,” he said, before adding that there “had been progress” in the past weeks and that France wanted full co-operation with London.
“I love Great Britain, I love its people. I have an overwhelming desire to have a government that wants to work with us in good faith,” he said after a speech setting out France’s priorities for its presidency of the European Union.
Regarding tensions over Channel crossings that intensified after the deaths of 27 migrants last month, he said: “Why are these women and men [in Calais] in these terrible conditions? Because they don’t want asylum in France.
“We offer it to them and have created permanent centres for them; we take hundreds of them to these centres. We take charge of tens of thousands of meals throughout the year, but these are women and men who want to reach British soil.”
He effectively blamed Margaret Thatcher for making the UK so attractive to migrants, claiming that deregulating the labour market makes it easier for people to work illegally.
“There are no legal asylum request pathways set up by the British, because there is still an opaque system that has existed since the 1980s where the British economic model relies on the illegal labour of foreigners,” Mr Macron said.
“If these situations are not resolved by the British in good faith, we will always have these situations on our borders, where France continues to control these points of passage in good faith … As you say in your country, ‘Be my guest.’”
While Mr Macron insisted defence co-operation had not been called into question by Brexit, he said Britain’s role in secretly negotiating the sale of Usdesigned submarines to Australia in September – at the expense of French vessels – had damaged that relationship.
“How can I ignore that the British were, it seems, the ardent promoters of a contract that deliberately fought against a French vision in the Indopacific?” Mr Macron said.
“All this is not the most obvious sign of friendship, to use understatement.”
Touching on the ongoing row over the granting of British fishing licences to French fishermen, he said he hoped it would be resolved before a French deadline today, despite the UK denying that it is working to such a time frame.
“There has been progress in recent weeks – I wish to salute that. There is a sincere re-engagement and I hope new paths open up, with all my heart.”
On his European priorities, Mr Macron said that reinforcing the EU’S sovereignty, notably its borders, would be France’s priority during its presidency of the bloc, which starts on Jan 1.
France takes on the rotating sixmonth presidency as Belarus stands accused of engineering a refugee crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East and pushing them to make illegal crossings into the EU member states of Poland and Lithuania.
The bloc has been deeply divided for years over its response to immigration and how to police the common external borders of its Schengen area.
“I would say that we must move from a Europe of co-operation within our borders to a Europe that is powerful in the world, fully sovereign, free in its choices and master of its destiny,” Mr Macron told the press conference.
Among France’s proposals will be setting up an emergency reaction capability to help EU states facing crises at their borders, Mr Macron said. He also wants the bloc to have regular political meetings on migration – as eurozone states already do on economic matters.
Mr Macron faces a presidential election in April, and conservative and farright parties are likely to make migration a campaign issue.
The French president also called for strong EU defence, saying he would work on creating a “European strategic sovereignty” against “common threats”, including “joint exercises”. “This idea … has allowed us to plant the seed that we Europeans, whether members of Nato or not ... have common threats and common objectives,” he said.
Since his election in 2017, Mr Macron has been pushing for EU independence on security, and for it to no longer rely on US military protection. He is a proponent for the creation of an EU army.
The French president also called for sanctions against “political forces” in the EU that cast doubt on humanist values “which make our Europe”.
He said he wanted to create an academic framework through which historians could independently draw up an official “history of Europe” to counter what he called “historic revisionism” at work in some countries.