Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau threatens to engage in a “showdown” with the United Kingdom over immigration

The Interior Minister is due to receive his British counterpart Yvette Cooper in December.

The tone rises. The Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, traveling on Friday November 29 in Pas-de-Calais, threatened to initiate a “arm wrestling” with the United Kingdom. He calls on London not to simply delegate the “guarding” from its border to France, in reference to the fight against illegal crossings of the Channel, where 72 migrants drowned in 2024.

“Brexit has destroyed all migration relations” with the British government, lamented the French minister, calling for “a legal admission route with criteria in economic terms and family reunification” in the United Kingdom. “There is a standoff to be had. I hope we don’t get to that point, but we have to change this relationship”he insisted.

Bruno Retailleau also announced that he would receive his British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, on December 9 in Pas-de-Calais. He will go to London the next day for a meeting with the countries concerned in order to “prepare this new relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom”.

“The standoff is quite simple, it’s that at a given moment, if things don’t progress, we will denounce the Le Touquet agreements”he threatened. Signed between London and Paris in 2003 and entered into force the following year, these agreements establish controls on French soil for people leaving for the United Kingdom.