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Paris calls for a “migration treaty” between London and the EU

by AI | 04.Sep 2024 | Europe in brief AI

France, from where a migrant boat departed and at least twelve people drowned on Tuesday, calls for a “migration treaty” between the United Kingdom and the EU.

Firefighters, a policeman, and a doctor stand next to bags containing the bodies of migrants who died after a boat capsized while attempting to cross the English Channel to England, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France, on September 3, 2024. (Photo: Denis Charlet / AFP)

Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais, France) – Paris called on Tuesday to “restore a classic migration relationship with our friend and neighbor” Britain, a few hours after the sinking of a boat that left at least 12 dead.

Resigning French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin recalled that France has been asking for “a migration treaty between Great Britain and the European Union” for two years.

Such a treaty could impose the creation of legal immigration routes, for example for migrants seeking to join their families.

Mr. Darmanin recalled that those who attempt the crossing to the English coasts do so to “join a family, to work there sometimes in conditions that are not acceptable in France.”

These people “want to go to Great Britain, and it is not the tens of millions of euros that we negotiate each year with our British friends and who only pay a third of what we spend,” that will stop the clandestine departures, he continued. (September 3, 2024)