"This has to stop": Xavier Bertrand calls for a showdown with London over immigration
"We must be ready to say 'Listen, ladies and gentlemen of England, if things do not change, we will give you back your border'," said the president of Hauts-de-France.
This Wednesday, the President of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand called for a showdown with London on the subject of illegal immigration, on the eve of a visit to his region by the French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau on this subject. "This has to stop. We have to be ready to say 'Listen, ladies and gentlemen of England, if things don't change, we're going to give you back your border'" , said Xavier Bertrand (LR), declared presidential candidate, on TF1. "And don't tell me that this will create a vacuum. Overnight, the British will change their policy" , he assured, calling for a "showdown that respects the law" .
Bruno Retailleau is due to go to Le Touquet this Thursday, accompanied by British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, according to Xavier Bertrand, to talk about the fight against people smugglers organising clandestine crossings to the United Kingdom which caused a record number of deaths in 2024. The British Home Office was unable to confirm the arrival of Ms Cooper, whose first visit announced by the French authorities in December 2024 ultimately did not take place, due to censorship by the Barnier government.
Last November, Mr Retailleau had mentioned the possibility "if things do not progress" of denouncing the Touquet agreements which have since 2004 set controls on French soil for people leaving for the United Kingdom. "I am going to ask the English minister if English economic leaders are sleeping well, because when there are people they take into their companies, who they pay with a slingshot, it is members of their family who have died crossing the Channel" , Xavier Bertrand also declared. "I hope that there will be decisions this afternoon to know how we put an end to this biased relationship with the United Kingdom" , he continued, a few hours before an Interministerial Council on Immigration Control.
Around ten ministers will gather around Prime Minister François Bayrou from 2:00 p.m. this Wednesday to discuss in particular "controlling migratory flows" and "national, European and diplomatic means to strengthen controls." "If in my region, there are so many migrants present, it is not to stay in France, it is to leave for the United Kingdom," he stressed. At least 78 migrants died in 2024 while trying to reach England clandestinely aboard makeshift boats ( "small boats" ), a record since the start of this phenomenon in 2018, according to the head of the Office for the Fight against Illicit Trafficking of Migrants (Oltim), Xavier Delrieu.
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