Britain and France end pilot agreement for boat refugees

The agreement concluded a year ago between London and Paris on the return of boat refugees who landed illegally in Great Britain will not be extended. The UK Home Office said it would no longer process new cases under this pilot agreement. The regulation passed in April 2025 stipulated that the British side could send asylum seekers who had been illegally trafficked across the English Channel back to France without examining their asylum applications, provided that it accepted the same number of refugees from there who had secured status on the French side.

The French Interior Ministry confirmed to the AFP news agency that talks were being held with the British about the modalities of withdrawing from the agreement. At a hearing before a National Assembly investigative committee on June 15, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said he had “clearly communicated to his British counterpart Shabana Mahmood that this pilot agreement is not intended to be extended.”

The agreement was modeled on a repatriation agreement that the European Union concluded with Turkey around a decade ago, with the key mediation of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, and which at that time served the aim of stopping the immigration of Syrian war refugees and other migrants from Turkey to Greek islands in the Aegean.

So far, around 1,400 migrants from the UK have been sent back to France under the agreement; Conversely, more than 1,110 refugees from France were accepted into Great Britain. The number of people crossing the English Channel illegally so far this year is around 19,000; In the same period last year, around 33,500 irregular arrivals were registered on the English coast by the end of September.

From France's perspective, the agreement did not have the deterrent effect it had hoped for. The agreement “does not have a 100 percent deterrent effect, quite the opposite,” Nuñez said in the National Assembly. The Interior Minister argued that France could not sustain this regulation alone in the long term. It would be better if withdrawals were organized under an agreement with the EU. However, the British side was not ready for this. Home Secretary Mahmood said it was wrong to think that if Britain joined a European take-back scheme the problem would be solved.

Mahmood estimated the repatriation costs at the equivalent of around 64,000 euros per case. Britain already pays France an annual three-digit million sum to finance increased coastal patrols on French beaches. A three-year agreement came into force in the summer, under which London committed to paying a total of 750 million euros. The transfer of part of the sum should be made dependent on the increased border patrols being able to really restrict the activities of people smugglers.

The mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, expressed little surprise on Thursday that the agreement was not extended. From the beginning, the experiment was overloaded with expectations that were far too high. “It was all illusory, inefficient and poorly prepared,” said the mayor, who has been trying to cope with the influx of irregular migrants in the English Channel for decades.