Britain should share responsibility for processing the asylum applications of thousands of migrants at a camp near Calais, according to a French interior ministry report, reports The Guardian.
The report, which is critical of the lack of cooperation between the French and British border authorities, was presented to French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, before he met his British counterpart, Theresa May, in Paris on Thursday for talks about the migrant crisis.
The scale of the problem was highlighted last week when scores of migrants were seen trying to stow away on queuing lorries bound for Britain during the first wave of a strike by French ferry workers.
The report commissioned by Cazeneuve and published on the website of the French newspaper Libération, says secure parking areas should be set up around the port to stop migrants climbing on to lorries. It also calls for a pilot study to examine whether regulating the flow of freight traffic to Calais would help prevent illegal migration to Britain.
It calls for the UK and France to pool resources to deal with asylum applications at Calais, and suggests that Britain should be prepared to house more migrants.
Both recommendations were thought to have been rejected by May. But after the meeting in Paris, May said Britain and France had agreed to step up efforts to discourage migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
The report by Jean Aribaud, a former prefect of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, and Jérôme Vignon, head of France’s National Poverty Observatory, examines why the the estimated 3,000 migrants camped at Calais want to get to Britain.