France, UK deadlocked combating crossings

France and the United Kingdom are struggling to complete a new deal on how to combat small-boat English Channel crossings amid disputes over how many boats are being stopped, the safety of asylum seekers in French waters, and costs.

Talks to overhaul the current three-year, 540-million-euro ($620-million) agreement were at an impasse, reported The Times newspaper on Tuesday.

UK negotiators are said to have rejected French proposals calling for the British to pay workers' salaries at a new migrant detention center in northern France and to fund barracks for riot police and reservists patrolling the coast.

Officials from both countries were understood to have been trying to reach a deal before the existing agreement, reached in 2023, expired on Tuesday. Sources said the main sticking point was how a new three-year package from the UK to France, worth 750 million euros, would be disbursed.

The current agreement was reached by the UK's previous Conservative Party government, which said the funds would pay for hundreds of additional law enforcement officers on French shores, and for the new detention center.

The terms also emphasized expanding surveillance technology and stepping up efforts in northern France to stop migrants from embarking on dangerous English Channel crossings.

According to The Times, the UK has sought to make the release of funds conditional on France meeting a specific target for the percentage of crossings prevented.

The paper said UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is pressing for tighter conditions, so funds are released only if France achieves an interception rate significantly above the current 33 percent.

Home Office figures show the rate has fallen to a record low this year, with just 2,064 of 6,233 attempted crossings prevented.

One French official expressed concern that the UK government was making excessive demands that could put the lives of asylum seekers at risk, reported The Guardian newspaper.

Xavier Ducept, France's junior minister for the sea, told a French parliamentary commission of inquiry last week: "What we want is for … the British to contribute to funding interception systems, which are very expensive. But they must not make this funding conditional on a type of efficiency that could be extremely dangerous for migrants, for the (security) services, and for France … Rescue comes first. And the law."

With UK funding for France's coastal surveillance due to expire and no replacement agreed, officials warn the border could be left exposed, according to the French newspaper Le Monde.

"The British want to impose numerical targets and daily operational reporting; they would like to run the whole system," a French Interior Ministry source told the paper. "The negotiations have failed; everything has gone up to the ministerial level."

The UK Home Office denied this and said officials were still in talks on Monday and remained hopeful a deal could be reached this week.