Europe: France and U.K. bicker over migrant drownings
The English Channel is turning into a migrant graveyard, said Minnie Rahman in the Irish Independent (Ireland). At least 27 desperate people drowned in the frigid waters between France and England last week, after their inflatable boat capsized; only two people were rescued. Most of the dead, who include seven women and three children, are believed to be Kurds from Iraq and Iran. These asylum seekers had to set sail in a flimsy vessel from near the French port of Calais because all safer routes to the U.K. had been closed. The British government has made it almost impossible to file for asylum from abroad—migrants now have to be “on British soil” to get their applications heard—and has cracked down on the smuggling of migrants inside trucks. More than 30,000 migrants have tried to cross the Channel by sea this year, triple the number in 2020. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has answered French requests for border cooperation on the migrant crisis “with posturing and bravado,” eschewing negotiation in favor of “draconian proposals such as illegal pushbacks at sea and even higher fences.” Such policies simply drive migrants into the hands of human traffickers, who are happy to take their cash, give them a boat, and send them off into the treacherous Channel.
This tragedy should have pushed London and Paris to “collaborate urgently to avoid further loss of life,” said Cécile Ducourtieux in Le Monde (France). Instead, tensions between the two powers have only increased. It began when Johnson broke diplomatic protocol by tweeting out a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, insisting that France take back any migrants who reach
British shores. A furious Macron gave a “scathing” response, saying, “We don’t communicate between leaders via tweets.” He then added, “We will see later how to act effectively with the British if they decide to be serious.” French officials are incensed at Johnson’s two-faced behavior. “Behind closed doors, British officials show the greatest cooperation,” but then they tell the press a different story, in which France is the villain. It’s always “easiest and most enjoyable” to blame the French, said Charles Moore in
The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). But frankly, it’s British law that encourages illegal migration, because we adopted the European convention that says refugees can stay while their asylum claim is processed. So, if you’re a migrant, “once you get into the country of your choice, no one can get you out.”
The underlying problem is the 2003 Touquet agreement, said Le Monde in an editorial. That bilateral deal effectively “makes France the guardian of the U.K. border.” But since Brexit, France has been tasked with forcibly preventing migrants from leaving the European Union for a non-EU nation. This status quo “is no longer an option, neither for London nor for Paris, nor for Brussels.” Macron threatened to scrap Touquet before he came to power, and now he must “pull this lever” and force the British to negotiate. Some system to examine asylum requests “must be jointly defined.” It’s time to end this “deadly neighborhood feud” and work out a permanent solution that doesn’t result in bodies floating off our shores.