France’s Court of Accounts published a report claiming the UK was not cooperating enough with France over questions of immigration policy to successfully reduce the number of irregular crossing in the English Channel on Thursday.

Despite agreements between France and the UK, the report stressed the “disappointing” coordination with the UK. It says the UK does not communicate “usable intelligence” regarding small boat crossings, only information that is “very general” and has not been counterchecked. The court concluded that the relationship between France and the UK is “therefore unbalanced in terms of exchanges of information and intelligence”.

The report evokes the frontier controls joint measures adopted through the Touquet Agreement of 2003, which followed the Protocol of Sangatte of 1991 allowing UK authorities to perform immigration controls in France and vice-versa. The report highlights, however, the difficulties brought by Brexit and by migratory influx, which increased by 58 percent from 2021 to 2022, as reported by the UK Ministry of Defense.

The increasing influx led to the Agreement of Sandhurst of 2018, when France agreed to put in place preventative measure in exchange for financial aid from the UK. France received €222 million between 2018 and 2022 following the agreement, and is set to receive €541 million on the three following years.

Both countries have seen the number of undocumented migrants increasing in the past years and have passed controversial laws aimed at controlling immigration. France passed its new immigration law in December 2023 after an initial version was rejected by the National Assembly earlier that month. Human Rights Watch and the Defender of Rights warned the bill would constitute grave human rights breaches. Meanwhile, the UK passed its Illegal Migration Act in July 2023 which received vehement criticism from the UN and other human rights groups for breaches of international human rights standards.