The UK is not coordinating sufficiently with France to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats or providing enough detailed information, French state auditors have said.
The cour des comptes, an independent French body that examines the use of public funds, has published a report on the efficiency of French policy on illegal migration, in which it said France was “struggling to develop operational cooperation arrangements” with its neighbours, including the UK.
The report refers in particular to a joint UK-French intelligence unit created in 2020 to tackle human smuggling and reduce the number of people risking their lives to cross the Channel. In 2022, it helped dismantle seven illegal migration networks.
But despite promises by French and UK ministers in 2022 to improve joint work against criminal networks, the auditors found “that the British don’t provide usable information on the departures of small boats and give very general, first-level information that has not been counter-checked”.
The report said in terms of people arriving by small boat, information on details such as “references or serial numbers of boats and motors, [and people’s] nationalities”, appeared to be “very patchy”.
It added: “The relationship between France and the UK is therefore unbalanced in terms of information and intelligence exchange.”
A UK Home Office spokesperson said: “This report is based on out-of-date information and does not accurately reflect our current working relationship, including intelligence sharing, with France. In the last two years, we have taken more robust action alongside them to crack down on vile people-smuggling gangs and stop the boats.”
They added: “We continue to work closely with French partners at all levels, helping to drive forward improvements in the prevention of crossing attempts, both on the beaches and long before they reach them. This relentless action has seen crossings fall by 36% in the last year. More than 26,000 of these dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossing attempts were prevented in 2023 thanks to our strong partnership with France.”
The crisis of people who drown or risk their lives trying to cross the Channel on makeshift vessels from around Calais in northern France to the UK’s Kent coast has challenged the Franco-British relationship for several years.
In November, a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, part of the Department for Transport, found that attempts to save 27 people who drowned in the deadliest Channel disaster for more than 40 years in November 2021, were compromised by confusion, lack of resources and poor communication between the UK and France.
France has increased efforts to prevent people from crossing the Channel in small boats, including through more police, equipment and facilities. The UK provided €222m (£190m) from 2018 to 2022 as part of a bilateral agreement to increase policing and security. Last March, at a Franco-British summit, the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who has vowed to “stop the boats”, promised €541m for the 2023–2026 period and France also said it would step up its funding.
The UK Ministry of Defence estimated that small boat crossings in the Channel increased by at least 58% between 2021 and 2022, a year in which more than 45,000 people were arrested on British shores. The French state audit report said 56% of crossing attempts were prevented that same year – unchanged from the year before. Home Office data showed that in 2022, French authorities prevented nearly 33,000 crossings, an increase of over 40% on the number of crossings prevented in 2021.
The British government announced this week that the number of people crossing fell by more than a third in 2023, to just under 26,000. The UK Home Office said another 26,000 “of these dangerous, illegal and unnecessary crossing attempts were prevented in 2023 thanks to our partnership with France”. More than 80% of the preventions of people travelling by boat have occurred on land, either at departure points on French beaches or far inland.
But the union representing British Border Force officials said this week that the number of people arriving in Britain in small boats is expected to rise again this year after a lull caused by bad weather. Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Services Union, said the latest slowdown was probably a “glitch” due to extremely poor weather in recent months.
One person died on 15 December after a boat carrying dozens of refugees ran into difficulties while attempting to cross the Channel to Britain. The last crossing of the year was on 16 December, when 55 people arrived from France in one boat. No further crossings were recorded for the remainder of the year, during heavy rain and high winds, making it the longest consecutive period with no arrivals.
The French audit report assessed other issues related to general French policies on migration, pointing to a lack of personnel to process cases and the need for more staff for deeper checks and data-processing at border patrols. The report also warned of the “instability” of rules in France where there have been 133 changes to the law in 10 years, and what it called the tendency of the French interior ministry to issue decrees at the whim of the news agenda.
The report said France carried out the most deportations in the EU of people on its territory, but still had difficulty implementing orders for people to leave. The report suggested France do more to develop its voluntary returns schemes.
A strict new immigration law was passed by the French parliament last month but it has prompted divisions within Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party and the resignation of a government minister. France’s constitutional council is to decide whether some measures – including migration quotas, limits on social security benefits or the right to citizenship – go against the constitution.
