Despite Britain paying France £660million to tighten up broader controls, Andy Burnham has struggled to get a grip on the small boats crisis since becoming Prime Minister, with arrivals continuing at a higher rate than under Sir Keir Starmer.
GB News can now reveal the three ways France has locked down its own borders whilst Britain deals with continuing numbers of small boat migrants crossing the Channel.
The clearest example is that France has reintroduced controls at all of its internal Schengen borders.
The current notification runs from May 1 to October 31 and covers its land, air and sea borders with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.
French officials have specifically cited irregular migration and migrant-smuggling networks as reasons for the controls.
The Conseil d’État, a French government body, dismissed concerns from a number of French organisations.
Explaining its reasons the body said: “The Conseil d’État indicated that the decision to reinstate border checks was warranted due to significant threats to public order and internal security related to the risk of terrorism and the operations of criminal smuggling networks facilitating illegal migration flows in northern France.
“The Schengen regulations identify ‘terrorism’ and ‘major organised crime’ as grounds for the temporary reintroduction of border checks.”
They concluded that the criminal threats to France, caused by illegal migration and terrorism, warranted the implementation.
The Italian border has come into particularly heavy enforcement.
In May 2025, then-Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told the French Senate that the government had reinforced the frontier with border police, gendarmes, customs officers and soldiers from Operation Sentinelle, backed by an additional CRS riot-police company.
France also runs joint patrols with Italy and uses formal procedures to readmit migrants intercepted after crossing from Italy.
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This is seemingly something they are unable to do with the UK, instead using the one-in, one-out scheme.
Mr Retailleau went further, telling the Senate that France had “locked down” the Alpes-Maritimes section of the Italian border.
The French government also confirmed this year that when an irregular migrant is intercepted at its Spanish or Italian borders, it uses a formal readmission procedure with the neighbouring country.
The Interior Minister said 66 per cent of French readmission requests at the Spanish border were accepted, with the same arrangement in place at the Italian border.
France also already has the power to refuse entry to anyone who doesn’t meet entry requirements – for example, someone lacking the necessary passport or visa.
Mr Burnham has already presided over 3,003 new arrivals on British shores.
GB News can reveal Mr Burnham’s daily average for arrivals stands at 130 in the first 22 days since the ex-Manchester Mayor succeeded Sir Keir on July 20.
Despite Sir Keir overseeing an eyewatering 77,183 small boat arrivals, the worst of any Prime Minister, the ex-Labour leader’s daily average stood at 103.
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