British Brexit criticizes France for “failing to fulfill its duty” to stop ships crossing the English Channel.
The channel’s migrants are not fully monitored by French authorities, according to a new statement from the British government. Almost 3,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel this month, bringing the total for 2021 to almost 23,000.
According to figures compiled by the Interior Ministry, the current total for this year to date is almost three times the number for all of 2020.
Despite the low temperatures, nearly 1,200 migrants have reached the UK in two days, following a daily record of 853 migrants who crossed the English Channel in 25 ships on Wednesday.
“Today the French government failed in its duty to protect lives and uphold the joint agreement to prevent small vessels from leaving France,” a Whitehall source said Thursday.
“They allowed hundreds of people to potentially sail to their deaths while only stopping a couple of boats.
“It appears that they ceded sovereign territory to criminal human traffickers.
“This abject failure will be raised in the strongest possible terms with Gerald Darmanin and the French government.”
A government source said France’s efforts to stop the ships appeared “to be going backward.”
“We are tied to a much bigger diplomacy,” they added.
French General Frantz Tavart, who oversees the 130 gendarmes guarding a 45-mile stretch of coastline that covers the Pas-de-Calais region, assured The Telegraph that his team was on the lookout for any illegal boats.
“I can tell you categorically that the orders coming from the French authorities must be as effective as possible to try to intercept a maximum number of migrants,” he said.
“It would be as stupid to suggest that we open the immigration gates due to a fishing dispute as to suggest that we should not attend the commemoration of the British soldiers who died on French soil on Armistice Day, which I did today in Arras.”
On British soil, volunteers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution said they were at a “breaking point” given the number of migrants they had to save.
The RNLI was heavily involved in rescuing migrants on Thursday.
They sent lifeboats from all over Kent and Sussex, including Ramsgate, Dover, Dungeness and Hastings.
“This should really be a job for the government, not for the RNLI,” one volunteer told The Telegraph.
“What happens when there is an emergency elsewhere and we are all at sea rescuing migrants?
“It is a very difficult situation.
“To be honest, we are all completely devastated.”