France is set to ask Britain to take migrants from across the European Union (EU) in a replacement to the "one in, one out" deal, reports suggest. The deal will expire at the end of this month, with a replacement agreement not yet in place.
Andy Burnham reportedly pleaded with Emmanuel Macron to renew the arrangement, but one government source alleged France was "on the verge of pulling out" of the talks. Now it has emerged French interior minister Laurent Nunez wants to exchange the scheme for an EU-wide agreement, in which Britain sends back small boat migrants in return for legitimate asylum seekers from across the bloc.
EU-wide mechanism proposed
Mr Nunez told Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that the current deal "was not intended to be renewed beyond October 1", pushing for a broader mechanism in the style of the Dublin agreement, which existed before Britain left the EU, The Telegraph reports.
Mr Nunez told a French parliamentary inquiry in June: "For our part, we want to move away from this bilateral relationship with the UK. We consider that France should not have to carry it alone, and that it would be better to integrate it into an agreement between the EU and the UK."
Pressed on whether a replacement scheme could be launched in October, he said: "There is an action plan, there is interest, but it would be naive of me to tell you there will be a mechanism to bridge the gap."
Resistance and recent crossings
The EU-wide model reportedly faces resistance from southern European states, which receive a high volume of new asylum arrivals and applications and fear they could be forced to take a disproportionate number of small boat migrants. The European Commission has also said it will not support the proposal until a compromise is reached.
It comes after a dinghy that set off from Cherbourg, some 280 miles from Calais, is thought to have made one of the longest journeys ever before being intercepted off the Hampshire coast. The rare arrival of migrants as far west as Portsmouth sparked angry protests over the weekend.
While the total number of boat crossings over the summer months has dropped to its lowest since 2019, smugglers appear to have started loading more people on to fewer, larger vessels. The UK Government said measures to tackle the trend include deploying 45 officers to the beaches of western France in the coming weeks, almost tripling resources in the area.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said: "The Government's agreement with France has been extended until autumn. This will ensure we will continue to remove migrants who arrive on small boats over the summer."
