Boris Johnson asks France to take back Channel-crossing migrants

A member of the UK Border Force helps child migrants on a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021 after being rescued while crossing the English Channel. — AFP photo British prime minister Boris Johnson wrote to French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday asking France to immediately start taking back all migrants who land in England after crossing the Channel, after at least 27 died when their boat foundered off Calais. Taking back migrants ‘would significantly reduce — if not stop — the crossings, saving thousands of lives by fundamentally breaking the business model of the criminal gangs’ behind the trafficking, he said in a letter sent to Macron on Thursday evening.