Teresa Suarez/EPA
“If I had felt that France was safe for me, I would never have returned to the UK.” Does Starmer and Macron’s scheme work?
A man who had been sent to France under the agreement “one in, one out”based between London and Paris, recently returned to the United Kingdom on a small boat. Claims to be a victim of “modern slavery” by smuggling networks in northern France.
According to the British newspaper, the man, who intends to apply for asylum in the United Kingdom, crossed the English Channel again after claiming that he was exploited and threatened by French traffickers.
First of all: what is this “one in, one out”, a “historic” agreement, from the perspective of Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron?
The agreement, signed in July between the two countries, provides that migrants without legal documentation who enter British territory illegally can be sent back to France, in exchange for asylum seekers with links to the United Kingdom who have never crossed the Channel. British authorities detain migrants arriving in small boats and send them to France; in return, the United Kingdom admits asylum seekers from France who have not attempted to cross the Channel illegally and who can prove family ties in the country.
The first repatriation took place in September. Migrants intercepted in the Channel reportedly have their biometric prints taken at the Manston immigration center. Those found eligible for the scheme are detained, with their applications declared inadmissible to the UK on the basis of arrival from a safe country.
“Forced to work, attacked, threatened with death”
“If I had felt that France was safe for me, I would never have returned to the UK,” the man told the British newspaper.
“Smugglers are very dangerous, they are always armed. I fell into a trap of a human trafficking network in the forests of France before the first crossing. I was forced to work, attacked and threatened with death with a gun”, reveals the same man.
At the beginning of October, a group of 25 asylum seekers returned to France under the same agreement released a joint statement warning of the “extremely difficult and unsafe conditions” in which they live.
The British Home Office confirmed last Sunday that 16 migrants who had arrived in the United Kingdom in small boats were returned to France the previous week, bringing the total number of returns to 42. In contrast, 23 asylum seekers with links to the United Kingdom have been transferred from France to British soil since the start of the program.
A ministry spokesperson stressed that the government “will not tolerate border abuses” and assured that measures will be taken to “remove all those who do not have the legal right to remain in the country”. But so far, no effective solution appears to have been found to the controversial scheme.
