The LR candidate for the presidency of the Republic was in Calais on December 13, to meet the mayor Natacha Bouchart. She notably asked, like many candidates before her, the renegotiation of the Touquet agreements.

On December 10, it’s Xavier Bertrand, unhappy adversary son, who had served as his guide at Croix. Barely three days later, the LR candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Valérie Pécresse, was back in the North. The migration issue still occupying a central place in the political anchoring of the right, this second trip was to Calais, where Valérie Pécresse met the mayor LR Natacha Bouchard.

This is a field where the government is vulnerable: the agreement with the United Kingdom on the subject is still not established, and the mediation with three activists on hunger strike was severely severely. To talk about immigration, security and even the economy, Calais and Hauts-de-France are prime terrain.

Valérie Pécresse did not miss the opportunity. On the spot, she asked for the renegotiation of the Touquet agreements, which frame the collaboration of France and the United Kingdom on border surveillance and particularly the “migration”. The proposal was supported by the president of the region Xavier Bertrand

“The Touquet agreements put too many burdens on France (…) The British must play their full part in this effort to secure their border and if they do not want renegotiation, their border will be returned to them. “, she declared, quoted by AFP. His solution to reduce the number of refugees who transit between the two borders: “that we use Frontex to be able to bring these illegal immigrants back to their country of origin”.

In force since February 1, 2004, this treaty was signed by one of the fathers of the contemporary right, Jacques Chirac. It provides for joint controls in the seaports of the two countries. The text also provides for common control offices. On the French side, this agreement is accused of fueling the migration crisis on the coast, by condemning the refugees seeking immigration to the United Kingdom. On the British side, the pro-Brexit government, as an elected party on the promise to reduce the influx of refugees, seems to throw to open its doors further, even continuing to push in the opposite direction.

It therefore seems unlikely that London is willing to renegotiate this agreement as Valérie Pécresse hopes. Many candidates and elected officials broke their teeth. Emmanuel Macron himself had requested from 2017. It is also the Sandhurst Treaty, signed in 2018, which will complete the Touquet agreements – already multiple amended – a shutter “fight against illegal immigration”. But France has never really succeeded in shirking its responsibilities at the border. It should be added that, for this work, the United Kingdom is supposed to pay very soon an envelope of 62.7 million euros.

As for the proposal to retain the refugees in their country of origin, it is a discourse ardently defended for decades by the extreme right, the National Rally of Marine Le Pen in the lead. In 2014, she said about refugees wanting “the authors at home, even in countries at war”. This proposal seems in all cases difficult to apply.

Indeed, IStates signatories to the 1951 Geneva Convention do not have the right asylum seekers before examining their claim. In addition, to call migrants to their country of origin without creating diplomatic tensions, France is partly dependent on readmission agreements with the states concerned.

What’s more, these operations would involve a massive system and a large budget, including to find the trace of migrants whose asylum application has been rejected and who sometimes choose to live in Europe illegally.