London pays Paris €766 million for the Channel. First deal with conditional payments comes after the "one in, one out" pilot returned two percent of migrants

British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who took over the office in the September 2025 reshuffle, and French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez will today sign a new three-year pact in Loon-Plage near Dunkerque in northern France, aimed at stopping illegal crossings of the English Channel. London will pay up to €766 million (£662 million, roughly $897 million) for this, and it is the first deal of its kind with conditional payments: according to France 24, about a quarter of the sum will be paid to France only if its measures produce results in the form of a higher number of intercepted boats. France 24 ↗

The signing culminates months of complicated negotiations. Under political pressure, the British side demanded performance clauses, because the effectiveness of French intercepts has, according to British station LBC, fallen from around 50% to 37% since 2023, when the previous pact worth £478 million was signed. The French side agreed in principle with the very concept of a "performance bonus," but for a long time could not agree on a target interception rate. LBC ↗

The new pact brings 50 deployed police officers trained in "crowd and riot control," who will be stationed directly on the beaches, along with a drone fleet, two helicopters, and a new camera system to identify smugglers. The number of French forces on the coast is to grow by 40% in the first phase (from around 750 today to roughly 1,050 people) and reach 1,400 by 2029 — an increase of almost 90%. In Loon-Plage, where the signing is taking place today, a new accommodation center for migrants designated for deportation is also being built, which is due to open by the end of the year. BBC News ↗

However, the three-year pact is also an indirect admission that the accompanying "one in, one out" pilot, which Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron announced during the state visit in July 2025, has produced only marginal results. Since its launch on 6 August 2025 until March 2026, the British returned 377 migrants to France and accepted 380 back through the legal channel for those with family ties. In the same period, however, 18,790 people arrived via the Channel — so the program returned approximately two percent of those arriving. The pilot agreement runs until June 2026, and London will soon have to decide whether to extend, cancel, or expand it. InfoMigrants ↗

The crossings remain deadly dangerous. In the first quarter of 2026, approximately 4,776 people arrived via the Channel, 33% fewer than in the same period of 2025, but just two weeks before the signing of the new pact — on 9 April — four migrants drowned near the village of Equihen-Plage in the Pas-de-Calais region, including two women and two men, while trying to reach an inflatable boat in deep water. Another 38 people were rescued. Al Jazeera ↗

The agreement has drawn criticism from three sides. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp of the Conservative Party, together with the leader of Reform UK, keep repeating that according to their interpretation "94% of illegal migrants in Britain ultimately remain" — a reference to the low rate of actual deportations. Human rights organizations warn that deploying police trained for crowd intervention directly on the beaches increases the risk of violent incidents. And southern EU member states — Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Malta — have, according to Al Jazeera, expressed concerns that migrants rejected by France will try to reach their borders, since critics say the bilateral pact bypasses common European rules, including the Dublin mechanism. Al Jazeera ↗

For Starmer's Labour government, the pact is an existential matter. According to British polls from spring 2026, Nigel Farage's Reform UK ranks among Labour's main rivals, and migration is, according to British pollsters, among voters' biggest concerns. If the French interception rate does not rise significantly by summer 2026, or if crossings rise again in the summer months, the performance-based portion of the sum — which Mahmood pushed through as insurance against unproductive spending — will save the government in London an estimated £100 to £160 million. It will be far harder to explain to voters why, after three years of tough negotiations, it secured a scheme whose predecessor returned only about two percent of arrivals over the past eight months. ITV News ↗