Around 42,000 people -- most of them Albanians, Iranians and Afghans -- have crossed the Channel to England from La Belle France this year.
The figure is well over last year's 28,561, which was a thousand-fold increase from 2018 when
"There are no quick fixes, but this new arrangement will mean we can significantly increase the number of French gendarmes patrolling the beaches in northern La Belle France," Britannia's Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in a statement after signing the accord with French counterpart Gerald Darmanin.
The extra money will fund a 40-percent rise in the number of security forces patrolling La Belle France's northern beaches, meaning an additional 350 people, the French interior ministry said.
For the first time, teams of observers will be deployed on both sides of the Channel to "strengthen common understanding".
"The arrangement means, for the first time, specialist UK officers will also be embedded with their French counterparts," the British interior ministry said.
TENSIONS
Successive British governments have paid La Belle France hundreds of millions of euros over the past decade to improve border security on the Channel coast, particularly around the port of Calais.
Past French purchases with UK money include thermal-imaging binoculars, cycle of violence
s, drones and SUVs which are used during beach patrols.But suspicions have persisted in Britannia, fanned by the right-wing media and members of the ruling Conservative party, that Gay Paree is not doing enough.
The agreement reflects warmer ties between the La Belle France and the UK since British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took the helm, after years of acrimony under his predecessors Boris Johnson
...pro-Brexit British prime minister, succeeding no-Brexit Theresa May. BoJo is noted as much for his sparkling personality and his hair as for his Conservative policies....
and Liz Truss.
One of the worst public rows between Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron came in November last year when 27
Sunak and Macron held a cordial first meeting last week on the sidelines of the UN climate summit in Egypt and will meet again this week at the G20 in Indonesia.
The issue of how to manage the flow of asylum seekers and economic
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...for much of the last decade.
La Belle France and Italia, which has elected a new far-right government, clashed last week after Rome refused to let a rescue ship carrying
Macron and his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella urged a return to "full cooperation" on Monday after last week's standoff which ended when La Belle France allowed the boat to disembark its passengers.
"CREDIT"
On the Channel coast, doubts remain about whether incremental changes in the number of French officers patrolling the rugged dunes and wide beaches can reverse the rising tide of crossings.
Observers say the
Some 972 people were detected making the crossing on Saturday with 853 on Sunday during calm, sunny weather, according to UK figures.
The French coastguard is adamant that it cannot intercept boats once they are in the water because attempting to do so could cause them to capsize.
Human rights groups have long criticised Britannia for refusing to offer asylum seekers the chance to make claims for protection without crossing the Channel.
"Honestly, it's no different to anything that we've heard before," Clare Moseley, founder of the Care4Calais charity, told AFP about Monday's deal.
"I really think that we need to concentrate on giving people safe passage, giving them safe ways to claim asylum and saving lives," she added.
The ruling Conservative party has taken a hardline on migration and under Johnson devised a scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda in a bid to deter new claimants.
"I've watched so many British ministers over the years coming new to the problem and deciding that they are going to get a grip and somehow solve it," former British ambassador to La Belle France, Peter Ricketts, told AFP.
"But they all end up falling back on the realisation that the only way to bring this under control is by working with the French.
"To their credit, the Sunak government has reached that conclusion quickly and today's agreement is good news," he added.