tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/le-touquet-treaty-30851/articlesLe Touquet Treaty – The Conversation2018-01-21T09:58:10Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/903402018-01-21T09:58:10Z2018-01-21T09:58:10ZWhere is Britain in Macron’s new Europe?<p>After years in the doldrums, the European project has received a shot in the arm from the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Not content with <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-wannabe-to-president-how-emmanuel-macron-beat-marine-le-pen-to-win-the-french-election-77302">defeating</a> the staunchly Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen in the 2017 presidential election, he went on to lay out his vision for the future of Europe in two major speeches delivered in September, at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPuRfyDa-vk">Acropolis</a> and the <a href="http://international.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2017/09/29/macron-sorbonne-verbatim-europe-18583.html">Sorbonne</a>. </p>
<p>Macron has emerged as a key leader in the EU, what with German chancellor Angela Merkel still mired in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/germany-enters-political-no-mans-land-as-angela-merkel-wrestles-with-election-fallout-87778">post-electoral hangover</a>, Spain embroiled in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/catalonias-snap-election-how-to-understand-a-confusing-result-89547">Catalan issue</a>, Italy waiting for tricky new elections, and some eastern European countries in <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-illiberal-states-why-hungary-and-poland-are-turning-away-from-constitutional-democracy-89622">open conflict</a> with Brussels. The contrast with the British prime minister, Theresa May, increasingly sidelined in the EU since the Brexit vote, could not be any greater. </p>
<p>Their meeting for the 35th <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-france-summit-2018-documents">Franco-British summit</a> on January 18 was therefore the perfect opportunity to see where a departing Britain might fit in Macron’s vision for Europe.</p>
<p>Warning against the perils of nationalism and fragmentation, Macron has set out to rekindle the European idea and woo back wary EU citizens. He has called for more Europe, through the strengthening of a Eurozone equipped with its own budget and finance minister, the launching of new common policies in a wide range of areas, including defence, and through an active involvement of all citizens. </p>
<p>This new Europe is to be based on differing levels of integration, with a very integrated inner core led by France and Germany, down to looser forms of collaboration. During his visit to Sandhurst Military Academy, he said that Britain, in its post-Brexit incarnation, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/26/profound-transformation-macron-lays-out-vision-for-post-brexit-eu">may one day find its place again</a>”. </p>
<h2>Sacrosanct single market</h2>
<p>Brexit, absent from the official agenda, burst onto the scene during the press conference, when Macron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/jan/18/macron-may-summit-french-president-emmanual-macron-theresa-may-labour-mp-calls-for-windfall-tax-on-pfi-companies-politics-live?page=with:block-5a60ef3ce4b0ff81ba724d58#block-5a60ef3ce4b0ff81ba724d58">bluntly explained</a> that Britain would not be allowed full access to the single market. By branding the idea of a special Brexit deal as pure hypocrisy and giving Britain the choice between a Norway deal, which includes freedom of movement and paying into the EU budget, or a Canada-style agreement, which excludes services, he put to bed any notion that Britain could have its famous cake and eat it. </p>
<p>He reiterated this in a subsequent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42757026">BBC interview</a>, saying Britain would get no special access to the single market unless it accepted all its conditions. </p>
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<p>This should not have come as a shock, not just because the EU has been drumming the same message but also because Macron has been holding this line ever since the Brexit vote. Many in Britain have argued that France is simply <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-france-wants-weaken-city-of-london-jeremy-browne-a7843351.html">acting in a mercenary</a> way and only wants to lure business away from the UK. This might be true but this argument misses the point. </p>
<p>Considering his vision for Europe, preserving the integrity of the single market makes total sense. Allowing a third country to benefit from the same advantages as member states without being subjected to the same rules would not only send the wrong message to the rest of Europe but it would wreck a single market that he sees as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/jan/18/macron-may-summit-french-president-emmanual-macron-theresa-may-labour-mp-calls-for-windfall-tax-on-pfi-companies-politics-live">very much the heart of the EU</a>”. Once the heart is stabbed, further integration becomes virtually impossible. Macron’s position, far from being hardline, is wholly logical and consistent with his desire for a more integrated EU. </p>
<h2>On the outside</h2>
<p>In the future, bilateral talks between France and the UK – apart from the usual consensual areas such as cultural exchanges – will be restricted to topics that lie outside the core of the EU remit, such as defence and foreign policy. And it just happens that in both areas France and Britain have a lot in common.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Macron’s pan-European defence initiative cannot function without Britain. Together, Britain and France represent <a href="http://www.cer.eu/publications/archive/bulletin-article/2006/britain-and-france-must-pool-parts-their-defence">almost half</a> of all the spending on defence in the EU and, of course, they both possess nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>It is true that Britain has always favoured NATO over any European schemes – but US president Donald Trump is now <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-nato-strategy-awaited-with-increasingly-frayed-nerves-in-eastern-europe-71424">prevaricating</a> over the organisation’s future. With the ever increasing costs of maintaining a well equipped army – and with the strong co-operation between the two countries since the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-france-defence-co-operation-treaty-announced--2">2010 Lancaster treaty</a> – Britain too has an incentive to continue cooperating. At the summit, Macron <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-the-uk-france-summit-18-january-2018">hinted that</a> the UK might even take part in future European defence initiatives. </p>
<p>Both countries are also keen to continue their close cooperation over anti-terrorism matters and both are members of the UN Security Council. These shared interests probably explain why Macron <a href="https://theconversation.com/macron-may-migrant-deal-why-britain-and-france-need-strong-bilateral-ties-90256">did not tear up the Le Touquet agreement</a> that enables Britain to carry out immigration checks on French soil. The threat of moving the border back to Dover certainly played a part in convincing Britain to pay more to secure the border in Calais, but acting on it would have damaged the highly valued corporation in defence and foreign policy. </p>
<p>These bilateral talks fit in very much with Macron’s vision, with Britain as part of the outermost circle of European integration. Britain is likely to be a third country that won’t fashion the policies of the core any more, but with whom close links will be maintained in areas of mutual interest. </p>
<p>Brexit, in particular its soft variety, could bring the best of both worlds for France: more integration in the EU without the UK constantly putting a brake on, and a close relationship in defence. That would define France as a key power, playing a central role in shaping the EU along with Germany, all the while enjoying the clout of its military power, bolstered by a close co-operation with Britain, outside Europe.</p>
<p>Macron has a clear vision for Europe and Britain has a place in it, albeit a much diminished one. But many obstacles lie ahead, not least convincing a European public left exhausted by the recent crises that have engulfed the EU that more, rather than less, Europe is the way forward. It certainly won’t be easy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ariane Bogain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The French president has a vision for a more integrated Europe – and Brexit feeds right into that.Ariane Bogain, Senior Lecturer in French and Politics, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902562018-01-19T13:55:14Z2018-01-19T13:55:14ZMacron-May migrant deal: why Britain and France need strong bilateral ties<p>Ever since 1963, when the then French president Charles De Gaulle first <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/27/newsid_4187000/4187714.stm">vetoed</a> its application to join the European Economic Community (EEC), the UK’s relationship to the European project has been refracted through its bilateral relationship with France. It was, after all, the confirmation by his successor Georges Pompidou that he would not repeat de Gaulle’s veto, after a <a href="https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/80a8172a-0ed9-465d-b90c-76b58cd02d33/publishable_en.pdf">famous tête-à-tête</a> with Edward Heath in May 1971, which sealed the UK’s entry to the EEC. </p>
<p>The relationship has waxed and waned in the period since – and France has ceded much of the leadership it once exercised of the European Union to Germany. Yet, in recent European history, the UK’s interests have needed to be weighed in the balance with those of France. Points of antagonism and mutual antipathy – most notably <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/apr/05/france.foreignpolicy">between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac</a> on the invasion of Iraq – must be set alongside cooperation and cautious entente on defence, security and foreign affairs.</p>
<p>So it is unsurprising that the British prime minister, Theresa May, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, held a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42723401">bilateral UK-France summit</a> on January 18 at a critical moment <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-negotiations-phase-two-heres-what-happens-next-88893">in the Brexit negotiations</a>, using the diplomatic opportunity to consolidate cooperation on defence and security. </p>
<p>Britain is trying to leverage its defence and foreign policy assets in the Brexit process, deepening the ties forged in recent years with France on military capabilities and intelligence sharing. Macron is attempting to rebuild French political influence in global affairs, and to shape the future evolution of Europe. Offering to <a href="https://theconversation.com/bayeux-and-brexit-what-the-tapestry-says-about-the-uks-shared-european-heritage-90332">loan the Bayeux Tapestry</a> to the UK is the latest in a string of soft power manoeuvres by the French president in the pursuit of these ambitions.</p>
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<h2>Le Touquet agreement</h2>
<p>Still, Macron preceded the summit at Sandhurst with hard talk on a visit to Calais, declaring that there <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/16/macron-visits-calais-before-migrant-crisis-meeting-with-may">would be no new “jungle camp”</a> and that security around the Channel crossings would be tightened. He asked the UK government to stump up more cash to improve security measures – and £44.5m was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/18/uk-to-pay-extra-445m-for-calais-security-in-anglo-french-deal">duly agreed</a> by May. However, he did not repeat a demand he and others made in the run up to the French presidential elections in 2017 that the original Le Touquet agreement, signed in 2003, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/emmanuel-macron-ill-renegotiate-le-touquet-border-treaty">should be renegotiated or abandoned</a>. </p>
<p>This is the agreement between the two countries which established so-called “juxtaposed” border controls on either side of the English Channel at Dover, Calais and Dunkirk. Similar controls already existed for travellers using the Eurotunnel at Coquelles and the Eurostar services between Paris and London. It has commonly been seen in France as “exporting” the UK border to French soil, and with it, the problem of migrants congregating near Calais while attempting to reach the UK.</p>
<p>I attended the 2003 Le Touquet summit in my then capacity as an adviser to the UK home secretary, David Blunkett. For our part, it was a largely ceremonial affair, as all the negotiations on the juxtaposed controls and the future of the Sangatte Camp – a facility in which people seeking entry to the UK were housed – had been concluded by the time of the summit itself. The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1408494/Blunkett-reaches-deal-to-shut-Sangatte-camp.html">British government agreed</a> to give the majority of the 2,000 people in the Sangatte camp residence in the UK and issued them with temporary work visas. </p>
<p>Security in Calais was tightened up and pre-embarkation border controls were established on the channel ferries. Flows of migrants to the area declined. What little we know of what happened to the Sangatte residents in the UK – there appears to be <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/59/3/509/1585042?redirectedFrom=fulltext">only a small-scale study</a> based on 15 interviews – suggests they found employment in low-skilled sectors such as food processing, as refugees and other migrants often do. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://treaties.fco.gov.uk/docs/pdf/2004/TS0018.pdf">Le Touquet Agreement</a> endured as a framework of Franco-British cooperation for a little over a decade, until the growth in migrant populations coming into the EU to seek refuge from conflict and displacement in North Africa and Syria put it <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-next-for-british-border-controls-in-calais-64769">under severe pressure</a>.</p>
<p>Yet despite the pre-election rhetoric, the new “Sandhurst Treaty”, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/jan/18/macron-may-summit-french-president-emmanual-macron-theresa-may-labour-mp-calls-for-windfall-tax-on-pfi-companies-politics-live">Macron called it</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-france-summit-2018-documents">reaffirms</a> the Le Touquet agreement as the basis for Franco-British cooperation over immigration issues. The formula for cooperation that was created in the early 2000s is reapplied: Britain has agreed to take some asylum seekers from the Calais region in return for increased security and the continued operation of border controls on the continental side.</p>
<h2>A new landscape</h2>
<p>But the governance of these arrangements has changed since 2003 in two important respects. In the case of unaccompanied minors, exceptional provision for a managed route to the UK was applied under the so-called <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38932500">Dubs Amendment</a> to the 2016 Immigration Act. Campaigners hoped that the UK government would give 3,000 children protection under this route, but the numbers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/02/child-refugee-legal-challenge-dubs-government-scheme-fails">have been limited to 480</a>, despite the willingness of local authorities to engage with the scheme. </p>
<p>The new agreement doesn’t appear to increase the number of people the UK is willing to take, but <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/674885/Treaty_Concerning_the_Reinforcement_Of_Cooperation_For_The_Coordinated_Management_Of_Their_Shared_Border.pdf">establishes clear time limits</a> for processing the cases of unaccompanied minors and other asylum seekers. Hundreds of people, including children, are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/16/england-seemed-so-close-refugee-15-crushed-to-death-by-calais-lorry">still living rough</a> in Calais.</p>
<p>The second change is that the revised <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:180:0031:0059:EN:PDF">Dublin (III) EU regulations</a>, which came into force in 2013, provide for a claim to asylum to be heard in a member state in which an asylum seeker has family members, as well as offering additional safeguards for minors. If the case is processed efficiently after initial claims are lodged, transfers of asylum cases to the UK from northern France could take place in an ongoing, structured manner. It remains to be seen whether this will happen in practice – not least because the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/border-force-under-strain-as-low-grade-staff-fail-to-keep-up-vstfs9td5">operational capability</a> of the UK Home Office remains weak and Brexit is draining departmental resources across Whitehall.</p>
<p>The bilateral agreements signed between France and the UK occupy a shifting and legally complex zone, within national and EU law governing asylum and migration policy and practice. Brexit will force further changes, the effect of which cannot easily be predicted, particularly <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/28/brexit-must-mean-not-less-child-refugees/">if Britain comes out of Dublin III</a> and does not replace it with equivalent law. </p>
<p>But the symbolic potency of immigration to Britain from northern France in fraught and often racist debates about national identity and security – on both sides of the channel – is unlikely to disappear, even if practical cooperation improves. That, unfortunately, is another lesson of recent history.</p>
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<p><em>This article was co-published on the University of Bath’s <a href="http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2018/01/19/macron-may-migrant-deal-why-britain-and-france-need-strong-bilateral-ties/">IPR blog</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Pearce is a member of the Labour Party. He was an adviser to the home secretary, David Blunkett, between 2001 and 2003. </span></em></p>The deal reaffirms the existing Le Touquet agreement as the basis for co-operation between France and the UK.Nick Pearce, Director, Institute of Policy Research, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647692016-09-02T12:01:18Z2016-09-02T12:01:18ZWhat next for British border controls in Calais?<p>During the EU referendum campaign, David Cameron <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12145781/David-Cameron-warns-of-migrant-camps-in-southern-England-if-Brexit-vote.html">suggested</a> that Britain’s border control in France might not survive Brexit. Now, with an upturn in the number of irregular migrants in the Calais area, there is growing impatience in France at the situation there. </p>
<p>This summer, two leading presidential candidates within the centre-right Republicans party in France – <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-freedom-of-movement-eu-referendum-uk-france-border-french-presidential-election-alain-juppe-a7118511.html">Alain Juppé</a>, and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nicolas-sarkozy-calais-jungle-camp-refugee-crisis-move-to-uk-french-presidential-election-a7214156.html">Nicolas Sarkozy</a> – have argued that immigration control should return to British territory.</p>
<p>An alternative centre-right proposal, put forward by the current president of the Hauts-de-France region which covers Calais, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37211267">Xavier Bertrand</a>, suggests the current arrangements should be reformed. His idea is that UK border control could remain in France, but there would be one or more processing centres, or “hotspots”, in France, where claims could be lodged with the UK authorities.</p>
<h2>The Le Touquet treaty</h2>
<p>These recent statements all concern the <a href="http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080205132101/http:/fco.gov.uk/files/kfile/cm6172.pdf">Le Touquet Treaty</a>, agreed by France and the UK in February 2003. The Le Touquet Treaty drew upon the precedent of the pre-departure control zone arrangements for the Channel Tunnel. It provides for each state to operate immigration control zone in the channel ports of the other and currently provides the basis for British controls in Calais and Dunkerque, and French controls in Dover. </p>
<p>In practice, the British authorities have the primary interest in this arrangement, as it enables them to block irregular migration from the continent. If a person is refused entry to the UK, or is found seeking to enter Britain clandestinely, they are handed over to the French authorities, to be processed under French law. The treaty also specifically provides that asylum claims are the responsibility of the state of departure, not the state running the control zone – so France is responsible for all asylum claims made in Calais, even to UK officials.</p>
<p>The story of the Le Touquet Treaty starts with the development of Europe’s Schengen border-free zone between 1995 and 2000. Its emergence made it far easier for migrants wishing to claim asylum in Britain, or to enter it in an irregular manner, to reach the French side of the channel. The first significant group of such arrivals to the Calais region came from Kosovo in 1998-1999, and were soon followed by others from Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.</p>
<p>The initial response of the French authorities to the humanitarian problems presented by these migrants was to authorise a Red Cross accommodation centre at Sangatte in 1999. The existence of that centre became politically controversial, however, as numbers increased, and after attempts by migrants to board freight trains bound for the nearby Channel Tunnel.</p>
<p>In 2002, after the centre-right came to power in France, with Nicolas Sarkozy appointed as interior minister, the British and French governments agreed a strategy of actively discouraging arrivals to the Calais region. The Sangatte centre was closed and British immigration controls were put in place in Calais, under the Le Touquet Treaty.</p>
<h2>New problems</h2>
<p>The 2002 deal succeeded in reducing the scale of irregular migration to the Calais region for many years. But the downside was that the lack of assistance for migrants led them to sleep rough, which over time led to the emergence of large tent cities in Calais and nearby.</p>
<p>The number of such migrants in Calais have grown markedly over the past three summers, from 1,000 in Spring 2014 to an estimated <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/29/calais-a-no-go-zone-for-police-as-population-reaches-10000/">10,000 in August 2016</a>. It appears that the largest groups among today’s migrants are from Afghanistan and Sudan. </p>
<p>The current situation is <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-really-europe-refugees-in-calais-speak-of-desperate-conditions-45414">dire in humanitarian terms</a>: there is inadequate shelter, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/02/calais-refugee-camp-running-out-of-food-as-donor-fatigue-sees-donations-dry-up">food</a> and hygiene, and there are many risks to personal safety. It also poses significant problems from the perspective of immigration control, with ongoing attempts by migrants to conceal themselves on board UK-bound HGVs and other vehicles.</p>
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<h2>Ending the status quo</h2>
<p>Over the past two summers, the two governments have reaffirmed an approach based on deterrence. After incidents at the Channel Tunnel in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/joint-ukfrench-ministerial-declaration-on-calais">summer of 2015</a>, the response of both governments was to agree that the UK would provide funding for enhanced security. After a meeting on August 30 between the French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Britain’s new home secretary, Amber Rudd, a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-by-the-governments-of-france-and-the-united-kingdom">joint statement</a> reaffirmed the goal of “working together to strengthen the security of our shared border.” </p>
<p>Consistently with that logic, parts of the “Jungle” camp in Calais were demolished earlier this year. Now, Cazeneuve <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/02/france-vows-to-dismantle-jungle-refugee-camp-calais">has vowed</a> to dismantle the rest of the camp, and to provide the migrants there with accommodation elsewhere in France. </p>
<p>But the recent political interventions from the centre-right are a sign that the ongoing situation may prompt a rethink by France, especially if the Republicans take the presidency and control of the French parliament in 2017 elections. So it is significant that <a href="http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080205132101/http:/fco.gov.uk/files/kfile/cm6172.pdf">Article 25 of the Le Touquet Treaty</a> permits either state to terminate the agreement by giving two years’ notice. Faced with this possibility, the British government may yet find it attractive to adopt a more flexible approach towards the migrants in Calais, in order to preserve the principle of control at French ports.</p>
<p>There are some precedents for admission of migrants from the Calais region to Britain. In 2002, as part of the Sangatte closure, Britain agreed to take 1,200 Iraqi Kurds and Afghan nationals. More recently – under pressure in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/02/uk-home-office-wins-appeal-against-ruling-four-syrian-refugees-calais-camp">courts</a>, in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/04/david-cameron-concessions-syrian-child-refugees">parliament</a> and from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37249847">campaign groups</a> – Britain has begun to co-operate closely with the French asylum authorities, to assist children and others who have a right to apply for asylum in the UK as family members. </p>
<p>Any move by Britain to accept more migrants from Calais would be compatible with the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-04-25/debates/16042535000002/ImmigrationBill#contribution-16042535000083">logic of co-operation</a> with France. But such a step would undoubtedly face the criticism that any act of generosity is a pull-factor for more migrants and asylum seekers. </p>
<p>One way forward might be to adopt a version of Xavier Bertrand’s “hotspot” idea, focusing on greater access to Britain for those recognised as refugees. This would not only be a significant humanitarian step, it would also show Britain’s willingness to help resolve a crisis for which it unavoidably shares responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Ryan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calls to amend the Le Touquet treaty between Britain and France are growing louder.Bernard Ryan, Professor of Migration Law, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.