Sunak announces new detention center in northern France
Rishi Sunak opens his speech by acknowledging that the two countries have “faced challenges” but today marks a “new beginning”.
Important progress was made on illegal migration, energy and security, he said.
He said Macron agrees that “criminal gangs should not be allowed to decide who comes to our countries”. He said the pair have taken the collaboration to an “unprecedented level”.
This includes:
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A new detention center in northern France
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A new command center with monitoring teams gathered in one place for the first time
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Another 500 new officers patrol French beaches
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More drones and surveillance techniques
Key events
Angelique Chrisafis
The Guardian’s France correspondent, Angelique Chrisafis, has more information on the new detention center agreed upon today:
Closer cooperation between the UK and France on migration issues across the Channel means that for the first time the UK will help fund a detention center in France.
The new center will be located in the Dunkirk area in northern France. The UK funding will increase the number of places available for the French authorities to hold people who do not have the right to stay in France while they wait to be deported.
Charities slam new detention center as ‘anti-refugee’
Charities are reacting critically to the announcements from today’s summit, warning that the focus on more detentions is “disappointing” and “anti-refugee”.
Christina Marriott, Executive Director of Strategy and Communications at the British Red Cross, said:
The focus on more detentions in today’s agreement with France is disappointing. It comes after the government’s proposal to stop people from seeking asylum in the UK earlier this week which we remain deeply concerned about. They would be ineffective, hugely expensive and in violation of the international laws that our country was once proud to have shaped. But most of all, this legislation would be devastating to the men, women and children who need our help.
We want to see a fast, fair but compassionate asylum system. But this week’s actions take us in a completely different direction. The government should focus its efforts on tackling the real problems with the system – such as inefficiencies that have resulted in a backlog of 160,000 people waiting for a decision on their claims.
Amnesty International in Great Britain
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights, said:
The UK and French governments should reach an agreement to share responsibility for providing asylum to people – no more heartless anti-refugee measures that simply seek to absolve Britain of any responsibility whatsoever.
Seeking asylum is a vital human right, not something that can be banned or withdrawn for political convenience.
Britain takes in a relatively small number of the world’s refugees, and it treats these people increasingly cruelly – with ministers vilifying traumatized and marginalized people in the media and sentencing them to months or even years of social isolation, deprivation and detention.
The Fortress Britain policy will not work and people will continue to drown in the Channel if ministers stubbornly refuse to make safe routes available to people seeking asylum – especially when they have family or other strong connections here.
The government has deliberately destroyed its own asylum system and is now legislating to try to make that destruction permanent. Throwing more money at the French, the Rwandan or any other government cannot fix what the British government has ruined.
Without a major change of direction from Sunak and Braverman, the dire consequences of their vandalism of human rights and the asylum system will only get worse.
In his closing remarks, Sunak said the breadth of the discussions today shows how close France and the UK plan to work together.
We left the EU but we did not leave Europe.
We want a close, cooperative, cooperative relationship with our European partners and allies and that naturally starts with our closest neighbor, France.
We are writing a new chapter in this relationship.
Sunak said the biggest driver of inflation and cost of living is energy prices.
He said one of the “practical, tangible” things to come out of today’s summit was more cooperation on energy security, bringing together scientists, businesses and the two governments.
We will be able to get our citizens cheaper, cleaner and safer energy faster.
We want to ease the cost of living pressure on them, the way to do that is to diversify and improve our energy supply and accelerate the transition to net zero and we have made good progress towards that goal today.
Macron: “We must address the consequences of Brexit”
Macron said “we have to fix the consequences of Brexit”, many of which were “underestimated”, but still need to be fixed through new close partnerships.
For our companies and people, we want to build new links.
Sunak says canal crossings are a ‘shared challenge’
Sunak stressed that the work in Calais to dismantle criminal gangs and stop the crossing of small points are “joint efforts” and a “shared challenge”.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this very complicated problem, and it won’t be solved overnight.
He defended Britain’s £300m investment in French patrols as “good investments for Britain to make if they stop people coming and reduce pressure on our asylum system”.
Sunak added “we want Ukraine to win this war”, and right now that means “providing them with the support, capabilities and training to launch an offensive and have decisive advantages on the battlefield”.
Asked about comments from the Kremlin that a foreign hand was behind the construction protest movement in Georgia, Macron said there was a tendency in Russia to see “all population movements as manipulation from outside”, but he disagreed.
He said images coming out of Georgia were “disturbing”, such as images of people carrying the EU flag being “pushed around”, which threatened freedom of expression. “Georgia is under very strong pressure,” he said.
Regarding Ukraine, he said France’s priority at the moment is to help the country carry out a military counter-offensive.
Asked about whether the UK and France will ever reach an agreement where refugees arriving in the UK can be sent back to France, Sunak said further cooperation had been agreed today, and he expected this to develop further.
Talks need to happen with other European countries, he said, and a new forum has been set up to make that happen.
Going forward, there will be more we can do.
Macron stressed that this is not a UK-France deal, but a UK-EU deal, and there will be further discussions at an upcoming summit in Chisinau, Moldova.
Macron is a “friend of Britain,” says Sunak, adding:
I feel very fortunate to serve with you and incredibly excited about the future we can build together. Thank you mon ami.
Some cultural partnerships have also been agreed, including to make it easier for school children to go on exchange and for museum curators, artists and writers to collaborate together.
Sunak says Britain and France share a “special bond” and will “always be at the forefront of (our continent’s) defence” as two of the largest defense forces in the world.
The couple has agreed that:
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Train Ukrainian marines to give Ukraine a decisive advantage on the battlefield and for Ukraine to win this war.
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Increase the interoperability of our forces
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Utilize the full potential of combined joint expeditionary forcez
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Promote stability in the Indo-Pacific Coordinating Operator mission
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Jointly explore the development of complex weapons, such as air defense, combat air and long-range weapons
Sunak says Britain and France working together to prevent Putin from ‘weaponizing our energy security’.
He said they have agreed “an ambitious new energy partnership” including a new civil nuclear cooperation agreement, working together on low-carbon energy.
Sunak announces new detention center in northern France
Rishi Sunak opens his speech by acknowledging that the two countries have “faced challenges” but today marks a “new beginning”.
Important progress was made on illegal migration, energy and security, he said.
He said Macron agrees that “criminal gangs should not be allowed to decide who comes to our countries”. He said the pair have taken the collaboration to an “unprecedented level”.
This includes:
-
A new detention center in northern France
-
A new command center with monitoring teams gathered in one place for the first time
-
Another 500 new officers patrol French beaches
-
More drones and surveillance techniques
Regarding illegal immigration, Macron said he wanted to make “progress in lock and key” and stressed France is aware of the sensitivities.
He said this year more than 30,000 small boat crossings were prevented and Franco-British intelligence dismantled 55 organized crime networks.
Macron said they had agreed on a renewed bilateral framework:
Today we decided to continue in that direction, very concretely and aware of our shared responsibility.
This includes new initiatives to act together, as well as to cooperate with the Europeans affected by the transit and crossings and with some countries where human trafficking begins.
Macron added that the discussions today included cooperation on energy, including cross-investment in renewable energy.
There were also discussions about limiting the use of fossil fuels and strengthening biodiversity, he said.
Macron confirms that he has agreed with Sunak on concrete measures for the training of the Ukrainian military and on high-value segments.
The war between Russia and Ukraine provides an important background to the discussions and increases the need to strengthen security and defense ties, he added.
We must find a result of this conflict, we must put our Ukrainian friends in the best possible situation.
He adds Britain and France will work on interoperability between future systems, including seabed control and energy-directed weapons, building human and technical capabilities and an ambition to work together on future cruise missiles.
We want to build the conditions for tomorrow’s European security, to have a real legal framework for anti-missile defense.
The summit marks a “shared will” to work together, Macron said.
I think that the will you clearly expressed and we discussed together and what our governments have worked on and what we have managed to create goes in that direction, he says.
He congratulated Sunak on the Windsor framework and a “new beginning of closer cooperation with the EU”.