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Priti Patel is playing a dangerous game with France

Credit: Getty

September 10, 2021 - 3:00pm

It is difficult to grasp a long story if you have a short memory. 

The problem with illegal migration across the Channel is almost 25 years old. In that quarter century, Britain and France have often quarrelled. Remember the Sangatte refugee camp? Remember The Jungle?

More often, the two countries have worked together. For 17 years now Britain’s south eastern frontier has been not at Dover or Folkestone but at Calais and Dunkirk — and at the Gare du Nord in Paris.

British Border Force officials check passports on French soil. They also inspect lorries queuing at the French Channel ports. Something like 50,000 people attempting to enter Britain without the right papers are prevented from leaving France each year. 

The latest Channel dispute — over a limited but growing number of migrations by small boat  — needs to be seen in that context. The Home Secretary Priti Patel is threatening to re-interpret the law of sea to allow Britain to turn back some boats carrying would-be asylum seekers. Her French equivalent, Gérald Darmanin, warns that any “unilateral” act could have “a negative impact” on Franco-British cooperation.

Patel and Darmanin are curiously similar figures. Both are regarded as dangerous hard-liners by the Left in their own countries. Both are themselves from migrant backgrounds — Patel’s family from India via Uganda, Darmanin’s from Algeria and Malta via Tunisia.

The two “interior ministers” should understand one another very well. Darmanin’s blunt letter to Patel this week carried no specific threats but it contained a pointed reminder — Britain will lose more than it gains if it falls out with France on cross-Channel migration. 

Some senior French politicians are already calling for an end to the 2003 Treaty of Le Touquet, which sets up the so-called “juxtaposed controls” allowing British border checks in France (and French checks at Dover and St Pancras). The critics include the president of the northern French region, Xavier Bertrand, the leading centre-Right candidate in the presidential election next April. 

During the last election the British-border-in-France was criticised by another candidate. His name was Emmanuel Macron.

Arguably, the Le Touquet treaty is also in France’s own interest. Without it, even more migrants or refugees would pile up in the Pas de Calais trying to find ways of reaching Britain.

Why don’t they just stay in France, you ask? The great majority of the illegal migrants who reach France do just that. The “Calais migrants” are a minority. They are determined to go to Britain because they speak a little English or because they have been convinced by smuggling gangs that the streets of Dover are paved with gold.

They are a perpetual problem for both countries — hence the treaty. There is, however, a growing drum-beat of French opinion that they are a British problem and that Britain’s border should be repatriated to Kent.

The UK would then face an influx of asylum seekers which would make the present dinghy and small boat traffic look like a trickle. Priti Patel would be well advised not to push out the bateau too far.


John Lichfield was Paris correspondent of The Independent for 20 years. Half-English and half-Belgian, he was born in Stoke-on-Trent and lives in Normandy.

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Peter Francis
Peter Francis
3 years ago

Good article. Thanks, John Lichfield. If the UK government is serious about reducing the numbers of irregulars crossing the channel, the only serious solution is to reduce the “pull factor”. Blustering at the French government is particularly pointless just now. With an election coming up, Macron would relish the prospect a spat with Les Rosbifs over migration. It would be a most welcome distraction.

Last edited 3 years ago by Peter Francis
A Spetzari
A Spetzari
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Francis

solution is to reduce the “pull factor”

Perhaps people are unkind to the guardian et al. They have been telling everyone who will listen that the UK (but above all, England), is a racist dysfunctional hell hole. Oughta do the trick…free copies all round!

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

I did not read it as I know it would just annoy me. Anything about French Politics, or Illegal immigration, always annoys me…. joining them up? No thanx.

But what I will say is any nation (basically all the West) which has outsourced its immigration policy to People Smuggling Criminal Cartels is INSANE.

James Joyce
James Joyce
3 years ago

What seems to be overlooked in this article is that the battle (yes, it is a war against invaders) is already lost by the time these invaders get to France, or really anywhere in Europe. Many do-gooders, especially “white saviors” are really people smugglers who are a vital part of the illegal immigration chain. Europe needs to seriously “harden the target” and embrace a zero tolerance policy. Doesn’t biology teach that invasive species are dangerous, often fatal to the local flora and fauna? Think pythons in the Everglades.
Should the immigration policies of the EU be determined by the people of Europe through their elected representatives, or should the policy be solely determined by invading hordes through sheer numbers? Aren’t these invaders “required” to register and seek asylum in the first country they reach? Don’t they often express contempt for EU laws by saying–Go to hell, I have a cousin in Germany and I’m not going to cooperate with you at all–no passport, no identification, no name–until I get to Germany?
Harden the target. Zero tolerance. Turn back the invaders in EVERY case!

D Glover
D Glover
3 years ago
Reply to  James Joyce

 ‘Aren’t these invaders “required” to register and seek asylum in the first country they reach?’
Unfortunately, that was the Dublin Convention, which applied to us before Brexit. We’re a third country now.
 You must remember that property developers donate good money to the Tories. If our population didn’t rise every year, what would housebuilders do?

Last edited 3 years ago by D Glover
Dustin Needle
Dustin Needle
3 years ago

Just. Reduce. The. Pull. Factor.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Dustin Needle

Just deport, next day.

D Glover
D Glover
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Not so fast. The French won’t accept them.
Their country of origin is not obvious if they’ve destroyed any documents they may have had.
Deport wither?

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  D Glover

Third party… Lots of places will hold them till they give the truth of where they belong. Australia did this with good success.

D Glover
D Glover
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Tony Abbott did that, but he’s not standing for election in the UK. Out of Lib, Lab or Con, who would do such a thing?
None of them.