UK £771 Million and Counting: Macron Under Fire Over Small Boat Crossings at UK Visit

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£771 Million and Counting: Macron Under Fire Over Small Boat Crossings at UK Visit

 

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Britain  amid intensifying scrutiny over his country’s failure to stem the tide of illegal small boat crossings in the English Channel, despite the UK handing France more than £770 million since 2010 to tackle the problem.

 

With 2,599 migrants arriving in small boats just last week, crossings so far in 2025 are up 56 percent compared to the same period last year. In total, 172,255 migrants have reached British shores since the crisis began in 2018 — all during Macron’s presidency — with the vast majority departing from French beaches. Despite the surge, only 4 percent of those arriving have been deported.

 

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp criticised the French government's efforts, saying, “We’ve paid France £771 million and they’ve stopped very few migrants on land and none at sea. This is in contrast to Belgium where embarkations have dropped 90 percent because they do intercept at sea. We should be asking France for a refund.”

 

President Macron and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are expected to hold a bilateral summit on Thursday as part of Macron’s three-day state visit, which begins Tuesday. While Downing Street has not confirmed whether further funding will be pledged, a spokesperson stated that the government “will only ever provide funding that delivers for the priorities of the British public.”

 

New measures could be announced during the summit, including allowing French gendarmes to intercept migrant boats after they’ve entered the water — a move long resisted by France. Additional proposals may include deploying floating barriers across French rivers and canals to prevent traffickers from launching so-called “taxi boats” into the Channel.

 

A recent report from the House of Commons Library revealed that the UK has provided £657 million to France since 2018 to support border security, in addition to £114 million given between 2014 and 2018. The total exceeds £770 million over 12 years, with little transparency on how the money has been used. The report noted, “There is little publicly available information about how funding is spent and monitored. UK authorities have refused Freedom of Information requests seeking detailed information.”

 

Previous revelations have shown that British money funded a range of purchases by French police — not just on the Channel but also on the French-Italian border. These included helicopters, quad bikes, e-scooters, drones, and even microwaves, car vacuums, and support for a horse brigade in the Somme Bay.

 

Tony Smith, former director general of UK Border Force, was blunt in his assessment: “Throwing more money at it – when the track record is so poor – is not a good investment. There is a lot of evidence it isn’t really working despite the money we have given them. Over time, that £800 million we have spent has been a net loss.”

 

Smith proposed a performance-based model: “If more money is to be given to the French it should be a performance-related system, so if there is a reduction in the numbers crossing they get a percentage of the money that we would have otherwise spent on asylum support.”

 

He also questioned France’s lack of proactive intervention. “My view is there’s a lot more the French could be doing. They need to step up their game considerably. I don’t understand why they can’t find the dinghies before they set off, given they have drone and satellite surveillance. Until now the French have never been prepared to get their feet wet, so if interventions at sea now go ahead, that could make a difference.”

 

Smith further criticised the Labour government’s decision to cancel the Conservative-initiated Rwanda asylum scheme, calling it a “grave error” just as it was about to be launched.

 

Nigel Farage joined the chorus of criticism, describing the French approach as an “insult” and calling on the Prime Minister to consider banning French trawlers from British fishing waters unless Macron demonstrates significant progress in stopping the crossings.

 

With British patience wearing thin and public anger mounting, Macron’s visit is expected to be dominated not by pageantry, but by pressure — and demands for answers on where hundreds of millions in UK taxpayer money has gone.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from Daily Mail  2025-07-09

 

 

[harryviking]

Put ALL the illegals on boats and send them back to the beaches of France! That is where they came from so it is their problem!!

[Watawattana]

12 minutes ago, harryviking said:

Put ALL the illegals on boats and send them back to the beaches of France! That is where they came from so it is their problem!!

Yeah, get it.  Shame that the law and the relevant UN rules that the UK has signed up to doesn't match your common sense.  If only they could get sent to a central African country to await processing, if only someone could have thought of that...

[mikeymike100]

1 hour ago, Watawattana said:

Yeah, get it.  Shame that the law and the relevant UN rules that the UK has signed up to doesn't match your common sense.  If only they could get sent to a central African country to await processing, if only someone could have thought of that...

Rwanda perhaps???😉

[angryguy]

Its not trump so will be ignored

[billd766]

You could have given me just 1% and I could have achieved the same result from here in Thailand, AND the UK could have saved hundreds of millions of GBP.  😀

[Tiger1980]

Macron must be laughing his socks off. Conned successive British governments out of +£700,000,000,plus giving the French access to British fishing grounds for 12yrs.

unfortunately Keir Starmer would find it impossible to negotiate his way out of a paper bag.

[DezLez]

7 minutes ago, Tiger1980 said:

Conned successive British governments out of +£700,000,000

Where did you get that figure from?

[Mike_Hunt]

9 minutes ago, DezLez said:

Where did you get that figure from?

Did you happen to read the article? 

[Surasak]

2 hours ago, Tiger1980 said:

Macron must be laughing his socks off. Conned successive British governments out of +£700,000,000,plus giving the French access to British fishing grounds for 12yrs.

unfortunately Keir Starmer would find it impossible to negotiate his way out of a paper bag.

 He would find a wet paper bag to be just as difficult.

[ericbj]

18 hours ago, Social Media said:

57

That the French Government has been provided with £770,000,000 over 12 years, with £657,000,000 of that over the past 7 years, WITHOUT ANY ACCOUNTABILITY at least in an annual report, indicates a gross dereliction of duty on the part of the UK Treasury.

 

If the French Government was provided with a given amount in any year and failed to clearly account for its use, in whole or part, their budget for the following year should have been reduced to take account of that.  That is how things worked in the TPNG Administration  back in the 1960s.

 

But I guess these days, when money is printed out of thin air, things have changed.  Easy come, easy go.  Politicians and civil servants are indifferent to expenditures, since the general public tends not to realise that the ensuing inflation is, in reality, a hidden form of taxation.  One with a particularly perverse effect upon the economy.

[geisha]

7 hours ago, harryviking said:

Put ALL the illegals on boats and send them back to the beaches of France! That is where they came from so it is their problem!!

No it’s not. 

[geisha]

Just to fill you all in, Marcron was received with full honors by Prince William and wife, paraded around Windsor in a horse drawn carriage with the King and Queen, and had a state dinner in full dress code in the Castle. Welcomed with open arms, and so things should be. Good for EU and the UK.