Migrants in Calais seeking asylum in the UK should be allowed to lodge their claim in France, says the president of the region, reports the BBC.
Xavier Bertrand said people living in the camp known as the Jungle should be able to apply at a "hotspot" in France rather than waiting to reach Britain.
UK officials currently check passports in France, stopping many from entering.
The Home Office said "those in need of protection should seek asylum in the first safe country they enter".
Mr Bertrand told the BBC that under his plan anyone rejected by the UK would then be deported directly to their country of origin.
The Jungle camp has become the focal point of France's refugee crisis with up to 9,000 people living there. Almost every night many try to circumvent passport checks by hiding inside vehicles entering the port and the Channel Tunnel to get to Britain.
Mr Bertrand hopes that amending the bilateral agreement between France and the UK - called the Treaty of Le Touquet - would help alleviate those problems.
The treaty allows British immigration officials to check passports in Calais and their French counterparts do the equivalent in Dover, and without it, UK officials would have to wait until people and vehicles arrived on British soil.
The Home Office said it believed in the "established principle, enshrined in the Dublin Regulation, that those in need of protection should seek asylum in the first safe country they enter."
The government said it was committed to working together to protect the shared border in Calais and insisted there was "an excellent relationship with the French government on these issues".