A prominent French lawmaker has attributed the increase of migrants travelling across the Channel in tiny boats to Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Numbers have been rising since Brexit, when Britain lost its returns agreement with the EU and had a very lax asylum policy, according to Éléonore Caroit, a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party in the French National Assembly.
She also restated long-standing French assertions that Britain’s “attractive” benefits and asylum system made it an “El Dorado” for migrants. The mythological city of riches, El Dorado, is purportedly in South America.
Her remarks coincide with growing dissatisfaction in the UK across all political parties at the French government’s inability to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel, following Saturday’s record-breaking daily influx of 1,194 migrants into the country.
Just 184 migrants—less than 15% of the 1,378 who attempted to cross—were prevented from departing by the French on Saturday. With the 1,194, the total for the first five months of the year has now reached 14,811, the most ever and up 42% from this time last year.
Despite the UK investing £480 million over three years to support more personnel and surveillance technology on the beaches to halt the migrants, the French have only arrested 38 percent of migrants so far this year, compared to 45 percent in 2024, 46.9 percent in 2023, and 42.4% in 2022.
Although they have not yet fulfilled their promise, the French have promised to amend their legislation to allow police to halt vessels in shallow seas. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has called on the government to halt its 12-year fishing agreement with France until they halt the Channel crossings and intercept migrants at sea.
The National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee’s deputy president, Ms. Caroit, called it “unfair” to claim that France lacked the political will to halt the boats.
“One thing is certain, though: the numbers are rising, but they have been rising since Brexit,”
she stated.
This is due to the UK’s extremely lax asylum system policy and its exclusion from the Dublin Regulation.
The Dublin Agreement allowed the UK to send migrants back to the EU if it could be proven that they had passed through a European nation without applying for asylum there. Sir Keir Starmer is attempting to get an agreement on a comparable plan, although no substitute was discussed during the Brexit negotiations.
When questioned about the French police’s poor stop rate, Ms Caroit acknowledged that “it is impossible for the French policemen to actually intercept the boats once they are in the water.” According to her, the legislative modification that permits police to act in shallow seas would have an impact. It has to do with legislation, but it also has to do with what transpired with Brexit. Returning the migrants used to be simpler, she added.
“In order to truly have a clear division of what can be done when the boats are in the water, we need increased cooperation between the UK and the French, as well as between the authorities and policemen.”
“Above all, it’s critical to discourage these vessels from genuinely wishing to visit the UK because there will be more boats if we don’t stop this, even though we can invest more money,
She said, “It is,” when asked if the UK is an El Dorado. People want easy answers to this complicated problem, but you have to visit Calais to understand how it looks, how many boats you have, and how many people are waiting to get to the UK.
