‘France, UK deal on Channel crossings only raises risks for migrants’
CALAIS, France (AA) – The new agreement between France and the UK to stop people trying to cross the English Channel will only increase the risks for migrants, a French NGO has warned.
Under the deal signed in Paris on Monday, the British government will pay France about €72.2 million ($74.6 million) in exchange for France boosting its security presence at coastal access points by 40% and enhancing surveillance measures.
The focus again remains on more policing, and this doctrine of security is doomed to fail, said William Feuillard, coordinator of L’Auberge des Migrants, an umbrella group of eight organizations working with migrants and refugees in Calais.
As an example, he cited the Channel disaster of November 2021, when 27 people were killed as their boat sank during the treacherous journey, making it the deadliest single incident on record.
Feuillard said measures taken after that tragedy were “useless,” stressing that the crossings continue to this day “because we do not address the root of the problem.”
Since the 2000s, at least 355 migrants have lost their lives in the English Channel, while at least 203 people have died or gone missing, at sea or on land, since 2014 trying to reach England from northern France, he added.
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