The temperature in discussions about the migration crisis in the English Channel rose this Friday (26), with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, asking at a press conference that the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “take seriously” the matter . On Wednesday (24), at least 27 immigrants died in the wreckage of a vessel on the stretch.
The reason for Macron’s fury was a series of messages posted the day before by Johnson on Twitter, in which the Briton published a letter with five suggestions for trying to solve the problem and attributed to France the responsibility for welcoming the immigrants.
“I spoke with Prime Minister Johnson two days ago in a serious manner,” Macron said at a news conference this Friday. “For my part, I continue to do this, as I do with all countries and all leaders. I’m surprised at methods that aren’t serious. We don’t communicate from one leader to another about these issues through tweets and letters that we make public. We are not informants”, he fired.
In an interview with French broadcaster BFM TV, Macron government spokesman Gabriel Attal called Johnson’s letter “mediocre in terms of content and totally inadequate in form.” “In practice, an agreement for the ‘transfer’ of immigrants has been proposed, which is clearly not what is needed to solve this problem,” said Attal.
Another reaction from Paris on Friday was to withdraw the invitation to the Minister of the Interior of the United Kingdom, Priti Patel, to participate in a meeting in Calais next Sunday (28) on the migration crisis in the English Channel.
On Twitter and in the letter made public, Johnson had suggested five actions: joint patrols to prevent more boats from leaving French beaches; implementation of more advanced technologies, such as sensors and radars; maritime patrols acting reciprocally in the territorial waters of the two countries and aerial surveillance; deepen the work of the Joint Intelligence Cell, with better real-time information sharing to generate more arrests and lawsuits on both sides of the English Channel; and immediate discussions for a bilateral agreement to return immigrants to France, along with negotiations to establish a similar agreement between the UK and the European Union.
“An agreement with France to take back immigrants who cross the English Channel along this dangerous route would have an immediate and significant impact. If those arriving in this country were returned quickly, the incentive for people to put their lives in the hands of traffickers would be significantly reduced,” Johnson argued on Twitter.
“This would be the biggest step we could take together to reduce the attraction to northern France and dismantle the criminal gang business model,” he added.
This year, more than 20,000 people, from countries like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria, tried to cross the English Channel irregularly. Throughout the year 2020, fewer than 10,000 illegal immigrants sought to make the crossing.
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