Paris, 16 November 2021 (TDI): On Tuesday, French police cleared a major refugee settlement that housed approximately 1000 migrants trying to enter Britain from France.
This occurred a day after Gerald Darmanin, French Interior Minister, announced to Priti Patel, his British counterpart, that they would cooperate “to prevent 100% of crossing channels”.
Over the last month, despite having spent 63 million euros on the problem, Britain accused France of not doing enough to stop migrants from passing through its border. Therefore, Darmanin on Tuesday announced; police had cleared the Grande-Synthe camp, near the port of Dunkirk under his orders, which is Britain’s main departure port.
Martial Beyaert, a socialist mayor of Grande-Synthe, estimated that over 1,500 people were at the camp, most of which were Kurds. They will move them into temporary shelters, either in the north or elsewhere.
Following a telephone conference between Darmanin and Priti Patel, both decided to evacuate the camp. Darmanin’s aides insist on the fact that the clearance was “scheduled for this date” prior to the telephone call.
Je me suis entretenu hier soir avec mon homologue britannique @pritipatel sur le sujet des petites embarcations traversant la Manche.
Nous allons poursuivre notre coopération opérationnelle et renforcer notre action commune contre les réseaux de passeurs. pic.twitter.com/ThpbrV0RjB
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) November 16, 2021
Technical solutions
According to Monday’s joint statement, the ministers discussed operational solutions and addressed the Channel issue.
“Both the home secretary and interior minister agreed to strengthen operational cooperation further. We must do more to stop the dangerous crossings. They agreed to speed up the delivery of the commitments made in the joint agreement of July 2021 to deliver on their joint determination to prevent 100% of crossings and make this deadly route unviable,” the statement said.
“They agreed that the joint technical working group will meet imminently to permit the use of new technology as rapidly as possible. The two ministers also committed to reinforcing intelligence sharing and police cooperation,” it said.
Record number of small boat crossings
British authorities called the record of 1185 migrants who crossed the Channel by small boats last week “unacceptable”.
French police stated they want to stop more people from crossing the border, but could not do so because of the large number of migrants and insufficient coastline to patrol.
They also refer to international maritime laws that prohibit interference where people travel to the UK via boat.
