UK police officers will be embedded with their French counterparts in control rooms and on beaches and the number of officers patrolling the French coast to try to stop people setting off will rise.
From the north of France to the Aegean Sea, from the Mediterranean to Mexico, the number of deaths at our borders is rising. More than 24,000 people are officially known to have perished on the perilous Mediterranean sea route alone since 2014. Yet these recurring tragedies produce no reaction from our political leaders. In this opinion article Mediapart's Nejma Brahim says this casual acceptance of migrant deaths cannot continue.
The numbers of migrants attempting hazardous clandestine crossings of the Channel to reach Britain, mostly in overcrowded small dinghies, has soared this year, already reaching well more than double the total of 2019. Now the British government has called on the Royal Navy to assist the country’s Border Force in a move officials say is intended to make the crossings “unviable”. In this interview with Mediapart, François Gemenne, a prominent Belgian political scientist specialised in migratory issues, says that the situation in the Channel is comparable to that in the Mediterranean and warns that “the idea of closing migratory routes is absurd and dangerous” and “will lead to yet more tragedies”.
British and French sea rescue services intervened in the early hours on Christmas Day to bring to safety at least 40 migrants, including children, attempting to cross the English Channel to England in precarious conditions in five separate boats.
A fleet of French fishing trawlers surrounded British boats fishing scallops off the Normandy coast, when heated exchanges included stone-throwing by the French who are angry that their scallop reserves, which they are prohibited from fishing between June and September, were being depleted by the British.
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