British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asks French President Emmanuel Macron to help with Channel migrants

New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak held his first official phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, just days after taking office.

Sunak said ties with France “go back centuries” and noted that the two countries are cooperating closely on a range of issues, from Ukraine to energy security.

However, the main discussions were about migrants crossing the English Channel, and Britain asked for help from France.

The UK’s Conservative government has made repeated promises since Brexit to curtail the flow of migrants from mainland Europe to the UK, often under very dangerous conditions, with hundreds of lives lost this year alone.

But the British were unable to do anything about the number of people trying to cross the border.

“The Prime Minister emphasized the importance for both countries to make the English Channel completely impassable to traffickers. The leaders committed to deepening their partnership to prevent deadly Channel crossings that benefit organized criminals,” Downing Street said in a statement.

The French side announced Macron’s “readiness” to “deepen bilateral relations between France and Great Britain, especially in the field of defense, strategic issues and energy.”

The British government is already providing financial assistance to the French authorities to better watch the French coast to prevent sailing.

But according to The Times, Rishi Sunak wants to go further. He wants an agreement with quantitative targets for intercepted boats, a minimum number of French agents assigned to watch the beaches, and British border guards to escort them.

On the British side, it aims to set targets for processing 80% of asylum applications within six months, compared to an average of 480 days, while tightening asylum conditions.

Record number of English Channel crossings

More than 38,000 migrants have made the dangerous Channel crossing in makeshift boats since the start of the year, more than in all of last year, already a record.

Another 308 arrived on Thursday.

According to British authorities, up to 80% of these new migrants are now Albanians.

The British asylum system is overwhelmed by the influx of refugees, with more than 117,000 cases pending. The reception area, where migrants must be received around the clock upon arrival, is crowded with people who have been there for more than 30 days or who sleep on camping mats.

Successive Tory governments have taken it all in, abandoning some illegal or unworkable ideas, such as pushing boats out of British waters with artificial waves, locking migrants on cruise ships or sending them to outlying islands.

The latest plan, announced under Boris Johnson, is to send illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda, but the controversial plan has stalled and is still awaiting legal action.

Rishi Sunak, himself a grandson of Indian immigrants, has taken a hard line on immigration, campaigning for refugee quotas to convince his party’s right wing. He appointed the ultra-conservative Swella Braverman as Secretary of the Interior.

Unlike previous governments that have taken an aggressive stance towards France regarding border crossings with migrants, the new UK administration has already adopted a more conciliatory tone.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said this week that he would like to have a more “constructive” relationship with Paris, in particular to take joint action with the Albanian authorities.

Confirming this change in tone, Rishi Sunak stressed during a conversation with Emmanuel Macron “the importance of the relationship between the UK and France as neighbors and allies” and said he was “looking forward” to the bilateral summit next year, according to his spokesman.