The Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau underlined, this Friday, November 29, in Pas-de-Calais that “the relationship between France and the United Kingdom can no longer be reduced to simple subcontracting” by France “guarding the border” between the two countries.
“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 during a press conference on the French coast in Ambleteuse (Pas-de-Calais), deploring that “Brexit has destroyed all the migratory relations that we had with across the Channel, including legal admissions”.
Bruno Retailleau indicated that he had invited his British counterpart Yvette Cooper to Pas-de-Calais on December 9, before a meeting the next day in London in a format extended to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland.
“We will denounce the Le Touquet agreements if…”
“The border between France and the United Kingdom is the common external border of Europe. Why should France alone, since the United Kingdom is no longer a member state, bear the full weight of the defense of this external border? This is no longer possible,” he explained. “If things do not progress, we will denounce the Le Touquet agreements”, which since 2004 have established controls on French soil for people wishing to travel to the United Kingdom, Bruno Retailleau further warned.
“We arrive in a framework, in a logic which is completely out of breath”, he further estimated, recalling that 72 migrants died this year according to the French authorities while trying to reach England by sea. aboard makeshift boats. “It is not tolerable, it is a drama, a tragedy,” he stressed.