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| Illegal immigrants try to board a lorry at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel |
France is becoming the “weak link” in Europe’s migration control.
The mayor of the northern French city of Calais has threatened to block the port unless Britain does more to control the number of illegal migrants.
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| Illegal immigrants storm a ferry at Calais |
Shifting the blame to the UK is easier for the French, who signed the Schengen Agreement. Ireland and the UK opted out.
Answer to the question Why Should England Share France's Immigration Problem, Would They Ours?
The assembly of illegal immigrants in the channel ports is in a large part down to the ridiculous free movement rules brought about courtesy of the EU. Once migrants get into an EU country it is impossible to stop them heading towards their chosen Utopia - the UK. Many of the eastern outposts of the EU have border controls from their adjoining non-EU neighbours which are, shall we say, none too robust. By its eastern expansion the EU has effectively provided France with a border with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Turkey. As well as this they have an unenforced border with Italy where large numbers of migrants land from North Africa. It is little wonder they are seeing huge numbers of migrants arriving at the channel ports. This is not the fault of the UK, it is the fault of the EU, and in particular those EU nations who are members of the Schengen Agreement (though it has to be said that border controls on mainland Europe had all but disintegrated long before that agreement came into force).
There is no reason why the UK should "share" the results of this folly. The way for France to tackle the problem is to prevent the migrants entering France in the first place. But they cannot, and that's their fault.
Unfortunately France must be bound by the rules that state that asylum should be claimed in the first safe country that the applicant arrives in. In most cases that is not France but had the French not signed up to the Schengen agreement and continued to patrol their borders with the same vigour as the UK (which I know is still insufficient but a good bit more effective than France) they may not have such a problem. The migrants would most probably be in Germany or Italy. Had they, in turn, not signed up to the Schengen agreement (etc. etc.). (New Judge's answer to the question posed on a forum)
