More than 28,000 people attempted to join the banks of England in 2021, three times more than the previous year. A phenomenon in full explosion that poisons relations between London and Paris.
Le Monde with AFP
The figures obtained by the British press agency Pa at the British Ministry of the Interior confirms an impression which already leaving little room for doubt: the phenomenon of the perilous crossings crossing the sleeve of small boats by migrants by migrants Dream of England exploded in 2021, concerning at least 28,395 people.
This number published Monday, January 3 is more than three times higher than the previous year (over 8,400), and these desperate attempts have been strongly developed since 2018 against the closure of the Port of Calais (northern France) and Eurotunnel, that migrants borrowed hiding on board vehicles.
On the month of November 2021, nearly 6,900 people made the crossing despite the danger related to the density of traffic, strong currents and the low temperature of the water, including a summit of 1,185 people On one day, the 11th of the month.
Some migrants paid for them in their lives, as at the end of November, when the sinking of a precarious boat – the most murderer in this very busy sea route – made 27 dead, a great wave of emotion in the opinion.
Political puzzle
The illegal crossings of the Channel have become a real political puzzle for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Minister of the Interior Prity Patel, while the Conservative leader has made the fight against immigration his horse of battle, in the stride of Brexit.
These crossings are also a regular tension between Paris and London, the British authorities estimating insufficient, despite the payment of financial aid, the efforts undertaken French side to prevent migrants from embarking. The French, who refute these accusations, retort that London rechigates the cords of the scholarship.
The climate between the two capitals had still stretched after the murderous shipwreck of November, Paris saw a very bad eye a proposal by Boris Johnson asking the French to take up the migrants that illegally crossed the sleeve.
According to the newspaper The Times Monday, the British have little hope of reaching an agreement with France before the French presidential election in April. In the meantime, the British government wants to render “impracticable” these crossings, for which smugglers are increasingly resorting to boats of larger capacity, dozens of people.
A controversial British bill.
A controversial bill, which promises more stringent measures against smugglers but also against illegally arrived migrants, is under consideration in Parliament. If it is adopted, asylum seekers arrived illegally in the territory will be referred to the “safe countries” by which they are previously passed.
Human rights defense associations are indignant against a text judged cruel. But for the government, it will create “a just but firm immigration system”, “will protect the most vulnerable and will suppress illegal immigration as well as the criminal bands that facilitate it”.
“People will continue to cross the handle in precarious boats, and traffickers will continue to gain profits unless the ministers still open roads so that refugees can ask for asylum here,” a of his commented Tim Naor Hilton, Director of the Refugee Action Association.