France’s top border official has finally admitted what many in the UK have suspected for a while—France needs to do more to stop the surge in small boat crossings. With migrant arrivals hitting record highs, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has acknowledged that his country needs to step up its efforts and may even consider sending migrants back to the UK as a way of sending a clear message: don’t risk your life making the dangerous journey.
Retailleau told The Sun: “We have to deal with the crossings,” and admitted that French authorities are currently only intervening to rescue people at sea, not to stop them from setting off in the first place. He added: “I’ve seen a number of videos where the taxi boats come close to the coast to pick up the migrants in water that’s not very deep, and I think that our gendarmes cannot intervene.”
