France has called for Britain to take in a share of English Channel migrants as record numbers of people leave French beaches for the UK.
Clement Beaune, France's Secretary of State for European Affairs, suggested that Britain’s asylum system, which he described as attractive to migrants, was partly responsible for the problem.
He said the EU should seek a new pact with Britain to address the sea crossings.
A record 828 people crossed the Channel on Saturday in 30 separate journeys, many of them on dangerously overcrowded small boats.
It far surpassed the previous record of 482 people, which was set only weeks earlier.
London provides funds to Paris to stem the flow of migrants from its shores. But Mr Beaune said France still faced costs.
“We are the ones who have paid a high price over the past 10 years — we see it in Calais regarding organisation, humanitarian aid and police checks,” he said on French television.
“We must, after Brexit, have a new migratory deal between the EU and Britain so that we can expel, or direct a certain number of migrants to the UK so they can request asylum.
“We have seen sometimes that it is the attractiveness of Britain's asylum system that is in question.”
Mr Beaune said migrants could be transported to Britain in safe and organised crossings, rather than the perilous journeys which many currently make.
Traffickers are using ever larger boats to crowd even more people on board and increase their profits, investigators believe.
Boat crossings have increased since the start of the pandemic. Fewer people stowed away in lorries after travel restrictions were brought in.
Dan O’Mahoney, Britain’s Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, said stepped-up border controls in France had let to hundreds of arrests.
But the journeys are a political headache for the British government, which has pledged to tighten UK borders after Brexit.
Britain said a further 10 crossing attempts were intercepted by French police, preventing another 193 people from reaching UK waters.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has promised to make the Channel route unviable. Draft legislation calls for stricter penalties on smugglers and illegal migrants.
She last month pledged new funding to help France stem the flow of migrants, including funding to double the number of officers patrolling beaches.
Britain said it would pay €62.7 million ($73.9m) over the next year to support France’s efforts.
Mr O’Mahoney said authorities were “determined to take down the evil criminal gangs” responsible for the crossings.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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