PARIS — France on Friday uninvited U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel from a meeting on dangerous crossings of the English Channel by migrants, as President Emmanuel Macron said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was not behaving “seriously.”
Macron said after the invitation was rescinded that he was “surprised” by an open letter, released by Johnson on Twitter Thursday evening, in which he called for a deal “to allow all illegal migrants who cross the Channel to be returned.”
But during a visit to Rome Friday, Macron hit back at the letter. “I am surprised by the methods when they are not serious. We do not communicate from one leader to another on these issues by tweets and letters that we make public. We are not whistleblowers,” he said.
“We find the open letter from the British prime minister unacceptable … Thus, Priti Patel is not invited anymore to the ministers’ meeting,” a French interior ministry official had earlier told POLITICO.
With Patel out of the picture, interior ministers from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany are set to meet Sunday with representatives from the European Commission in the French port city of Calais to discuss how to curb dangerous crossings of the Channel by migrants who want to reach the U.K., after 27 people drowned in the sinking of a dinghy Wednesday night. Patel had been slated to attend the meeting.
French police are facing unprecedented challenges to prevent crossings as smugglers become more organized. Close to 26,000 migrants have reached the U.K. by small boats this year, according to the British Home Office.
In his letter, Johnson called for a readmission agreement between the U.K. and the EU, but also asked Macron to strike a bilateral deal “to allow all illegal migrants who cross the Channel to be returned” to France.
“I don’t think there is anything inflammatory to ask for close co-operation with our nearest neighbors,” U.K. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC Radio 4 Today program. “The proposal was made in good faith. I can assure our French friends of that and I hope that they will reconsider meeting up to discuss it.”
Johnson’s letter is a “disappointment,” and making it public makes it “worse,” Darmanin told Patel in a message, according to AFP.
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said in an interview Friday morning with BFMTV the letter was “lacking on substance and inappropriate on form.” Johnson’s proposed bilateral deal is “obviously not what we need to solve this issue,” he added.
This article has been updated. Hannah Roberts contributed reporting from Rome.