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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Diane Taylor

Asylum seeker sent back to France in ‘one in, one out’ scheme to be returned to Syria

A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover from a Border Force vessel
People being brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel after a small boat incident in the Channel. The man arrived in the UK in a small boat and was sent back to France last November. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.

When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees.

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