The UK and France have unveiled a ‘one in, one out’ agreement to remove irregular migrants, despite lingering concerns among EU countries that it could have implications on their own responsibilities.
The announcement on Thursday (10 July) closed a three-day state visit to the UK by French president Emmanuel Macron, featuring a banquet with the British King Charles.
"We all agree that the situation in the Channel cannot go on as it is so we're bringing new tactics into play and a new intent to tackle illegal migration and break the business model of the criminal gangs," UK prime minister Keir Starmer told reporters on Thursday.
Both Starmer and Macron are under pressure at home to curb irregular migration, with the UK premier facing particularly strong scrutiny having promised to reduce the number of small boats carrying migrants across the Channel.
Immigration and asylum policy is identified as the most significant policy issue in the UK by 51 percent of Britons, according to polling by YouGov, and has been seized upon by Nigel Farage’s nationalist Reform party.
Farage, for his part, spent Thursday broadcasting from a boat in the Channel.
Data published by the UK’s Home Office found that 38,023 people arrived in the UK on small boats in the year to March 2025, up 22 percent on the previous year. The UK government adds that these figures are still 17 percent fewer arrivals than the peak year of 2022.
Under an initial pilot scheme, around 50 migrants would be sent each way, each week. UK officials have said that the numbers could be scaled up if the scheme works well.
France will take back migrants who have illegally crossed the Channel in small boats, within weeks of their arrival, while the UK will accept a similar number of asylum seekers from France — the so-called 'one-in, one-out' principle — provided that the they can prove a family connection to the UK. The idea is that the guarantee that people crossing from France will be returned within weeks will hurt the business model of migrant traffickers.
The agreement is the latest in a series of cooperation deals between Paris and London.
Last month, the French government agreed to intercept small boats using six navy patrol vessels and to intercept boats within 300 metres of the French coast.
However, Italy, Greece, Spain, Malta and Cyprus, a group known as the ‘Med 5’, wrote a letter to the EU commission expressing concern that the Franco-British pact could result in people deported from the UK being sent to their countries because of the Dublin Regulation which sees irregular migrants returned to the country where they entered the EU.
On Thursday, commission spokesperson Markus Lammert told reporters that the EU executive was "working with France and the UK, as well as other [EU] member states to support solutions that are compatible with the spirit and letter of EU law."
Meanwhile, Starmer and Macron also signed off on a joint defence procurement deal, referred to as an ‘Entente Industrielle’ to purchase new Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
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Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.