On 21 August French police officers attacked a group of migrants as they attempted to leave a beach in northern France in a dinghy and cross the Channel to get to Britain. The officers attacked them with Pava pepper spray before slashing the inflatable boat with a knife. Such brutality has become British and French state policy through a series of agreements signed by both governments to deter channel crossings.
On 10 June the Labour government extended its cruel, bureaucratic and racist ‘one-in, one-out’ agreement with France until 1 October. Its original end date was 11 June. Introduced in August 2025, the scheme allows migrants crossing the Channel by small boat to be detained and returned to France, while an equivalent number are admitted to Britain through a controlled legal route. This state-run system treats human beings like numbers to be exchanged, regulating their movement according to the interests of the ruling class and the demands of capital.
In April, Britain committed £662m over three years to strengthen border enforcement in northern France, including the removal of migrants intercepted while attempting to cross the Channel. The funding provides for more French police officers, drones, helicopters and surveillance cameras, as well as a new removal centre in Dunkirk. The Labour government has also agreed to deploy British riot-trained police officers in northern France. Three months since its signing, the French government claims to have stopped 185 ‘small boat crossing events’.
These agreements represent the latest escalation of a decades-long racist border regime. Since the 1991 Sangatte Protocol and 2003 Le Touquet Treaty, Britain has extended its border controls into French territory, with the 2018 Sandhurst Treaty further expanding cooperation and British funding for French border enforcement. We are witnessing an intensification of the same system: imperialist states working together to police migration, restrict migrants’ movement and control who can enter and remain.
The Franco-British border regime does not stop migration; it makes it deadlier. At least 525 people have died while crossing the Channel since 1999. Britain and France have created the conditions driving mass migration, forcing millions of people from oppressed nations to flee wars, poverty and climate destruction. The same imperialist powers then criminalise their movement and force migrants to take increasingly dangerous routes.
Communists in Britain and France must fight imperialism and state racism while defending migrants’ unconditional right to stay, organise and fight.
