UK seeks French muscle to stop migrants crossing Channel

Britain’s immigration minister said after meeting
with French officials Tuesday that the two countries are looking to put new
muscle into their efforts to stop a record number of migrants successfully
crossing the English Channel from France to Britain in small boats.
Chris Philp said the U.K. and France were working at
“completely cutting” the Channel route with what he called a “comprehensive
action plan.”
Philp, who spoke to Sky News, provided no details.
There was no comment from the French about Philp's meeting with Interior
Ministry officials in Paris. Philp was joined in the talks by Britain's newly
appointed Channel threat commander, Dan O'Mahoney. O'Mahoney is to return to
France next week to continue talks, Philp said.
More than 650 migrants have reached Britain so far
in August — including 235 who made the 33-kilometer (about 20-mile) crossing in
a single day last week.
“French authorities are doing a great deal of work.
They’ve intercepted well over a thousand people so far this year," Philp
told Sky.
“But the sheer numbers crossing the Channel are
completely unacceptable to the French government, and unacceptable to the UK
Government, so it’s quite clear that more needs to be done ... If we can make
this route unviable, which we are determined to do, then migrants will have no
reason at all to come to France in the first place.”
Numerous accords have been signed to stop migrant
flows from northern France to Britain — the latest last month. British police
have for years worked in France's Calais region and Britain’s Border Force
helps run a joint coordination center in Coquelles, outside Calais. Much of the
cooperation, including funds from Britain, has centered on stopping migrants
who mass around Calais and Dunkirk from sneaking onto trains in the undersea
Eurotunnel or hiding in trucks boarding cross-Channel ferries.
But migrants’ success at using small boats,
including rubber dinghies and kayaks, to make the perilous crossing changed the
dynamics and upped British pressure on France.
French maritime authorities routinely save migrants
in distress on one of the world’s busiest waterways, with 125 migrants rescued
over the past week. But a comparison of those saved to those who make it across
appears to reflect an increased willingness by desperate migrants to risk the
crossing — and a thriving new niche for people smugglers who sell the small
boats, which are unseaworthy in the currents of the English Channel. It may
also indicate some success in keeping migrants off trucks and trains.
Britain and France signed a deal in early July to
share intelligence on smuggling networks.
A count by French maritime authorities last year
already showed an exploding number of migrants attempting the crossing in small
boats, with more than 2,700 rescued at sea or stopped trying to embark — more
than four times as many as in 2018. The upward curve was unrelenting this year
with 4,192 migrants trying to cross in 342 boats by the end of July, said
Marine Monjarde, spokeswoman for the Maritime Prefecture in northern France.
Maritime officials never say how many crossings were
successful, noting their job is to save lives. Four migrants died last year,
but none so far in 2020.
The crossings, often at night, are downright
dangerous, Monjarde said. The migrants have no maritime experience, Monjarde
noted. “They don’t know the wind, the currents, the tides ... They’re usually
carrying too much, their boats are generally badly equipped ... they don’t
always have life vests.”
But “they see the coast on the other side and the distance
appears short,” she said.