Hand back our £771MILLION Mr Macron.. s'il vous plait: French President to face questions over his country's failure to dent small boat crisis as he arrives in Britain

Daily Mail​

07-07-2025

Emanuel Macron flies into Britain tomorrow under huge pressure to finally crack the escalating small-boats crisis.
The French president will face questions over his country's failure to make a dent in illegal Channel crossings – despite being handed more than three quarters of a billion pounds of British taxpayers' money.
Arrival numbers are up 56 per cent so far this year compared with the same period in 2024, with 2,599 last week alone.
And a total of 172,255 small-boat migrants have reached Britain since the crisis began in 2018 – entirely under Mr Macron's presidency – with the vast majority departing from French beaches. Only 4 per cent have been deported.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'We've paid France £771 million and they've stopped very few migrants on land and none at sea.
'This is in contrast to Belgium where embarkations have dropped 90 per cent because they do intercept at sea. We should be asking France for a refund.'
Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Macron are due to hold a bilateral summit on Thursday at the end of the president's three-day state visit, which begins tomorrow morning with a royal welcome.
Downing Street declined to say whether the Prime Minister was ready to pay France tens of millions more to step up patrols, saying only that the Government 'will only ever provide funding that delivers for the priorities of the British public'.
The two leaders are likely to announce details of new measures, including moves which will finally allow gendarmes to intercept dinghies already in the water.
There may also be pledges for wider 'dragnet' tactics in French rivers and canals, installing floating barriers to prevent traffickers using them to launch so-called 'taxi boats' into the Channel.
A report by the House of Commons Library, published this week, set out how £657 million has been given to France by the UK since 2018.
A further £114 million was handed over in the previous four years for other security measures, making a total of more than £770 million over 12 years.
The report added: 'There is little publicly available information about how funding is spent and monitored.
'UK authorities have refused Freedom of Information requests seeking detailed information.'
In 2023, it emerged some of the UK's money had been used to buy equipment for French police operating on the French-Italian border – not the Channel coast.
It was also revealed that most of the funds had been spent on helicopters, cars, motorbikes, e-scooters and quad bikes, plus surveillance equipment such as binoculars, drones and dash cams.
British taxpayers' cash was also used to microwaves and car vacuums, and to support a horse brigade in the Somme Bay.
Tony Smith, former director general of UK Border Force, told the Mail: 'Throwing more money at it – when the track record is so poor – is not a good investment. There is a lot of evidence it isn't really working despite the money we have given them. Over time, that £800 million we have spent has been a net loss.
'If more money is to be given to the French it should be a performance-related system, so if there is a reduction in the numbers crossing they get a percentage of the money that we would have otherwise spent on asylum support.'
Mr Smith added: 'My view is there's a lot more the French could be doing. They need to step up their game considerably.
'I don't understand why they can't find the dinghies before they set off, given they have drone and satellite surveillance. Until now the French have never been prepared to get their feet wet, so if interventions at sea now go ahead, that could make a difference.
'The Government's 'smash the gangs' policy isn't working and the British people are losing patience.'
He added that it was a 'grave error' by Sir Keir to abolish the previous Conservative government's Rwanda asylum scheme when it was finally ready to get off the ground.
Nigel Farage described the French approach to the crisis as an 'insult' and urged the PM to block French trawlers from British fishing grounds unless Mr Macron agrees to step up cooperation dramatically.
The Reform UK leader said: 'We have given the French £800 million in the last ten years in return for virtually nothing.
'Yet the Government now wants to give them access to our fishing waters for another 11 years. They simply cannot have both. Starmer has got to get much tougher and tell Macron he can't have the fish if he won't stop the boats.
'Their efforts at the moment are derisory. We see the French navy day after day escorting them to the halfway line. It is just an insult.'
Boris Johnson has accused Mr Macron of 'weaponising' the small-boats crisis as revenge for Brexit.
In his autobiography last year, the former PM said the French leader was so alarmed by the threat to his beloved EU project that there were 'a host of issues where, given the chance, he would not hesitate to put his Cuban-heeled bootee into Brexit Britain'.
He added: 'It seemed at least possible to me that he was weaponising the problem.'
A No 10 spokesman said Sir Keir's efforts at 'resetting relationships and partnerships' with EU leaders were leading to greater cooperation with the French.
The spokesman said the UK's 'joint work with the French is stronger than it has ever been', adding: 'That relationship is key to a number of issues, and we expect to make good progress on a wide range of priorities, including migration, growth, defence and security.'