French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has called for a migration agreement between the European Union and Britain, which should also settle the refugee dispute between Paris and London. Darmanin said on Sunday that he was in favor of a European treaty that would solve the problems of asylum applications, deportations and family reunions, Deutsche Press Agency (DPA) reported. The project will form part of the French EU presidency, which begins on Jan. 1. The number of people reaching the English coast this year has already topped 13,000, according to the BBC, with 8,417 in 2020, according to the Home Office. On Saturday, Darmanin visited the towns of Loon-Plage and Marck, located on the French coast, where migrants try to cross the English Channel to reach Britain every day. Darmanin also urged the British government to "uphold its promise" to finance the fight against the illegal immigrants who gather on the northern French coast seeking to cross into England. "We need to negotiate a treaty, since (Michel) Barnier did not do so when he negotiated Brexit, which binds us on migration issues," the interior minister said, adding that France will champion the project when it takes over the EU's rotating presidency in January. Barnier, who is now running for president in France, was the EU's Brexit negotiator during the fraught talks on a deal to cover relations with the UK after it left the European Union. The issue of the trafficking of migrants across the Channel to southern England is a constant source of friction between Paris and London, not least on the question of the costs incurred in policing them. A total of 15,400 people attempted to cross the Channel in the first eight months of this year, a increase of 50 percent over the figure for the whole of 2020, according to French coast guard statistics. "The (British) government has not yet paid what it promised us," Darmanin said. "We call on the British to keep their promise of financing since we are maintaining the border for them". Under an agreement reached in July, Britain agreed to finance border security in France to the tune of 62.7 million euros ($73.8 million), According to British media reports, British Home Secretary Priti Patel in September threatened to withhold the money in the light of the record numbers of migrants arriving from France. — Agencies
