What makes Britain look so great to migrants in France?

Following the latest Channel tragedy on Tuesday when five people, including a seven-year-old girl, died, one local French mayor squarely blamed Britain.

Jean-Luc Dubaele, mayor of Wimereux, the coastal resort in northern France from where the boat departed, said migrants were prepared to risk life and limb because they knew they would receive a warmer welcome once on UK shores.

“Why do they want to go to England?  It’s because they’re welcome there. They can get a bank account, a work contract ... The English pay us to take them to England. They pay us to stop them crossing, but then they welcome them!,” he fumed.

French politicians often complain that Britain’s lack of a “proper” ID system means migrants can find work and accommodation more easily than in France, and for all the tough talk about stopping the boats, the black economy relies on their labour.

Migrants hoping to reach the UK often say they believe it is easier to get a job and accommodation in Britain, and that they also wish to leave France as they don’t speak the language.

Aid charities in France, meanwhile, complain that migrants are treated like animals and often forced to live in makeshift camps in the damp and cold.

On the face of it, the numbers don’t appear that different.

The Home Office has built up a stock of 16,000 properties for asylum seekers and around 50,000 asylum seekers were housed in 400 hotels late last year, due to drop to 300 hotels early this year.

France, by comparison, offers accommodation of various sorts for around 122,500 people.

But Pierre Roques of migrant aid charity Utopia 56 said: “Do you have migrant slums ringing London as we do around Paris?

“That tells you something about just how many actually receive housing. It’s not great in the UK but one gets the impression it’s not quite as inhumane as here.”

However, the numbers suggest France receives and grants far more asylum requests than Britain.

Last year, Britain received 67,337 asylum applications, relating to 84,425 individuals.

France, by comparison, had 142,5000 requests according to official figures, and accepted 61,000. This result takes into account applications at first instance and all appeals. The overall acceptance rate is around 45 per cent.

The UK has no such overall acceptance figures. As of June 2022 (the latest data available), around six per cent of applications lodged in 2021 had a known outcome and, of these, 66 per cent had been refused – roughly on a percentage par with France but out of a far lower total.

Many migrants seeking to reach the UK have seen their asylum requests rejected in another country, with Germany, Sweden and Belgium, among others, increasingly refusing requests.

That rules out asylum in France. Many of these individuals have little choice but to attempt a Channel crossing, say aid groups.

But France barely deports any migrants whose asylum request is rejected.

In a report published in January 2024, France’s state auditor estimated that between 2019 and 2022, only 3,000 rejected asylum seekers were deported out of a total of almost 140,000 “obliged to leave the country” over the same period.

This means that only two per cent of forced removals actually took place.

Asylum seekers cannot generally work for the first six months in France. In the UK, they can only apply for permission to work if they have been waiting 12 months for a decision, and they are not considered responsible for the delay.

In reality, it is generally thought easier to find a job in the UK than France in the black economy.

As for benefits, in the UK, asylum seekers are offered accommodation, not in an area of their choice, and £49.18 per week for each person in a household to pay for food, clothing and toiletries.

At around €200 (£171) per month, the amount they receive in France is almost identical.

Despite French complaints, the situation is not glaringly different on either side of the Channel.