On a trip to Boulogne-sur-Mer after the shipwreck which cost the lives of 12 people this Tuesday off the coast of Pas-de-Calais, the resigning Minister of the Interior called for a migration treaty with Great Britain.
At least twelve people died in the sinking of a migrant boat off the coast of Pas-de-Calais on Tuesday, September 3. Late in the afternoon, Gérald Darmanin went to the scene in Boulogne-sur-Mer to meet with rescuers and elected officials.
The resigning Minister of the Interior first denounced the fact that 70 people were crammed onto “a small boat of less than seven metres” by people smugglers described as “real criminals”.
A task for the “new government”
During this press briefing, Gérald Darmanin said that it is necessary to find an agreement with Great Britain to establish a “migration treaty between Great Britain and the European Union”.
“We absolutely must re-establish special relations with our British friends,” he assured from Boulogne-sur-Mer.
The former mayor of Tourcoing believes that finding an agreement with the British will be a task for the “new government as soon as it is appointed” and that his successor will have to tackle it.
Gérald Darmanin recalls that this proposal was made “by the President of the Republic to Boris Johnson two years ago”, while the British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, elected in July, had committed shortly afterwards to “giving new impetus” to the relationship between London and Paris.
Indicating that the victims are “undoubtedly people from the Horn of Africa”, Gérald Darmanin recalled that those who attempt the crossing to the English coast do so to “join a family, to work there sometimes in conditions which are not acceptable in France”.
Migrants ‘want to go to Britain’
He also explained that migrants crossing the Channel “want to go to Britain” and that the “tens of millions of euros that we negotiate each year with our British friends” are not enough to stop the departures.
The British “only pay a third of what we spend,” stressed Gérald Darmanin.
In November 2021, when the sinking of a migrant boat caused the death of 27 people, strong tensions arose between France and Great Britain.
The day after the tragedy, Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister at the time, sent a letter to Emmanuel Macron, in which he called on France to take back “all illegal migrants crossing the Channel”.
Regarding this new fatal shipwreck, the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor Guirec Le Bras, indicated that the shipwrecked are “essentially Eritrean”. An investigation has been opened for “aiding illegal entry and stay in an organized gang” and “involuntary manslaughter”.
