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This Monday, the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, urged the United Kingdom to modify the rules for applying for asylum in order to discourage irregular crossings in the English Channel. On the other hand, the UN denounced a lack of cooperation between the two countries, which have experienced days of tension since 27 migrants died when they tried to cross the shared waters to reach British shores.
France reiterated this Monday, November 29, its call to the United Kingdom to change its asylum application rules in its territory. For now, each request must be made from British soil and for France this is an incitement for migrants to cross the English Channel irregularly, with the risk of a repeat of last week’s incident, in which 27 migrants were killed in the wreck of a boat, trying to reach the British coast.
“The United Kingdom must open legal access to migration,” said French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin in an interview on BFMTV. The official once again accused the British labor market – very permissive towards people without papers – of making an implicit call for migrants to go and look for work on the British island.
The minister said he is now ready to “discuss” with his British counterpart, Priti Patel, after having rejected his invitation to participate the day before a meeting in Calais with different European ministers to discuss the migration crisis.
Ready but “on the condition that we have a normal relationship”, emphasizing the fact that “private speeches” that are exchanged “are not always in accordance with public speeches”. With that phrase, Darmanin seemed to refer to the letter that Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent to French President Emmanuel Macron, which was published on networks by the British leader without having previously communicated it.
In the letter, Johnson asked Macron to accept the withdrawal of all undocumented immigrants who will arrive irregularly on British shores. That publication added another diplomatic disagreement between the two leaders.
Following his meeting with the French president on Monday morning, Gérald Darmanin stated in the interview that, while France had received 150,000 asylum claims, the United Kingdom had collected only 30,000. At the same time, he affirmed that many of the migrants who want to cross the English Channel clandestinely do not request asylum in France. According to their own figures, 60% of those who set out on the roughly 50-kilometer journey that separates France and the United Kingdom – from Calais to Dover – are likely to obtain asylum on the British side.
The French Interior Minister concluded by announcing that the staff of the Central Office for the Suppression of Irregular Immigration and Employment of Foreigners without Titles (OCRIEST), the agency in charge of fighting, among others, against migrant smugglers, will be doubled. a change that includes its renaming as the Office to Combat Traffickers.
Darmanin indicated that justice officials and personnel from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance will join the office, which currently has 123 employees, to give it “more strength, not to say that it will revolutionize it.” His work scheme will be redesigned next year to work in the same way as against drug traffickers.
On the other hand, the French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, will write to Boris Johnson on Tuesday to advance in the establishment of agreements on the illegal migratory flow in the English Channel.
The UN denounces a lack of cooperation between France and the United Kingdom
The United Nations (UN) said on Monday that the shipwreck that killed 27 people was a “tragic example” of lack of cooperation between France and the United Kingdom.
“Whether in Calais, in the English Channel, or on the border between Belarus and Poland, we are allowing the criminal gangs of smugglers and disinformation to have a free hand to handle the information, and that is not the way to do it”, said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary General, António Guterres.
However, the spokesperson denied any comment on the growth of tensions between Paris and London after the incident last week, leaving only clear “the need for a political dialogue between all the states involved”, while warning about the despair of migrants, who believe that these dangerous trips are “the best solution”.
“There is an economic need, and above all there is a human need for managed migration,” concluded Dujarric.
Migrants in an inflatable boat leave the coast of northern France to cross the English Channel, near Wimereux, France, on November 24, 2021. Migrants in an inflatable boat leave the coast of northern France to cross the Channel of La Manche, near Wimereux, France, on November 24, 2021.
© Gonzalo Fuentes / ReutersPope Francis denounces those who use migrants “to defend their political agendas”
At message sent this Monday to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) With the aim of saluting migrants for their 70 years of service, Pope Francis criticized – without citing particular cases – those who exploit “suffering and despair to advance or defend political agendas”, affirming that “the lack of Human respect at national borders minimizes all of us in our humanity. “
He also stated in his letter that we should not be scared “by the number of migrants” but urged that “we meet everyone as people, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best as possible to their unique personal situations and relatives “.
In addition, the Supreme Pontiff highlighted the need to ask “what benefits do migrants bring to the communities that host them and how they enrich them”, and recalled that “in the markets of upper-middle-income countries, migrant labor is highly demanded and welcomed as a way to compensate for the lack of manpower. “
On the other hand, the leader of the Catholic Church stressed that “migrants are often rejected and subjected to attitudes resented by many of their host communities.”
With EFE, AP and Reuters
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