The Mail on Sunday, 27 November, Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP
The petulant outburst from President Macron in response to Boris Johnson’s letter asking the French to do more to deter migrants from making the perilous Channel crossing was revealing. After all, the PM had made five simple, yet important, requests.
The most vital were that Border Force officials help patrol French beaches and nearby roads; that the UK sends back to France migrants who cross the Channel; and for Border Force cutters to be allowed to help patrol French coastal waters.
The PM also offered to ‘deepen’ intelligence-sharing on the operations of smuggling gangs, and said the UK could fund the deployment of ground sensors and radars in northern France to detect suspicious activity.
Yet instead of dealing with Boris’s concerns, Emmanuel Macron, like an angry five-year-old who has been caught out, threw a tantrum over the fact the PM had the temerity to make the letter public – obviously because it exposed the French authorities to ridicule for having taken so little action already. Instead of a rant, he should have showed humility. After all, 27 migrants had just died.
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