British officials have long accused France of doing too little to stop migrants leaving its safe shores by crossing the English Channel on small boats. But now France is pointing out double standards on the opposite shore.
A report by the Court of Accounts, which independently analyses French public spending, claims that Anglo-French cooperation on the Channel crisis is “still disappointing.” The British, it argues, “do not communicate exploitable information on the departures of the small boats and give very general, unverified first-level information,” such as “very piecemeal information” on “the references or serial numbers of the boats and the engines” transporting migrants.
The British Home Office’s response, quoted in The Times, almost borders on dismissive. Officials simply say the claims are based on “out of date information” and do not “accurately reflect our current working relationship, including intelligence sharing, with France.”
The department pointed in particular to “robust” action “in the last two years.” But tens of thousands of migrants arrived via the Channel in the years leading up to this period, too.
Who is telling the truth? It is likely that both Britain and France are equally off target in different ways, since neither appears to take the issue seriously enough. For France, illegal entrants moving on to another land is often seen in the corridors of power as a convenience. Meanwhile in Britain, the ruling Conservative Party has made it quite clear that it doesn’t care about migration—be it legal or illegal—anywhere near as much as it claims to, and simply toughens its rhetoric to win votes.
Whether or not it communicates enough with French officials about illegal crossings, it is certainly true that the Conservative government has handed its Parisian counterpart hundreds of millions of euros to help stop the boats. This has been used to increase policing and security around the border.
The Court of Accounts also noted that a joint Anglo-French Operational Intelligence Unit, has contributed to the dismantling of seven people smuggling networks.
After dubiously taking credit for reduced Channel crossings in 2023, the Home Office stressed that it does have a “strong partnership with France.” Emmanuel Macron’s team has not commented on this aspect of the report.
