The French Court of Accounts recently published a report alleging that the United Kingdom is not providing sufficient cooperation to France in regards to immigration policy. It argued that this lack of collaboration has resulted in an inability to significantly reduce the number of irregular crossings occurring in the English Channel.
Despite existing agreements between France and the UK, the report underscored the lacklustre coordination between the two countries. It highlighted that the UK has been providing “very general” information on small boat crossings, failing to share “usable intelligence” or carrying out necessary verification before passing along information. This exchange of information and intelligence was deemed “unbalanced” by the court.
Historically, joint frontier control measures were established via the Touquet Agreement of 2003, following the Protocol of Sangatte of 1991. These protocols allowed authorities from both sides to perform immigration checks in each other’s territories. An influx of immigrants, increased by 58% from 2021 to 2022 according to the UK Ministry of Defense, and the complications brought by Brexit were however a point of concern.
The increasing immigration led to the Agreement of Sandhurst of 2018, where France committed to implementing preventative measures against irregular crossings, in exchange for financial aid from the UK. Between 2018 and 2022, France received €222 million under the agreement, and will receive an additional €541 million over the next three years.
Both nations have witnessed a surge in the number of undocumented migrants over the recent years, prompting them to enact controversial laws aimed at controlling immigration. In December 2023, France passed its new immigration law amidst warnings from Human Rights Watch and the Defender of Rights about potential violations of human rights. The UK, on the other hand, enacted its Illegal Migration Act in July 2023, which was subsequently condemned by the UN and other human rights groups for being in breach of international human rights standards.