Rishi Sunak has responded to French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim that the Rwanda plan is a “betrayal of values.”
Macron said the plans would prove “totally ineffective” and that using another country to handle asylum seekers created a “geopolitics of cynicism.”
The French president made the comments during a speech on the future of Europe at Sorbonne University in Paris.
He also warned the EU was in “mortal” danger from rising nationalism and fragmentation.
Sunak has hit back at the French President’s claims
Reuters
Macron said: “I also do not believe in this model that some people want to put in place which means that you go and look for a third country, for example in Africa, and take people who arrived illegally on our soil there who don’t come from that country.
“This will create a geopolitics of cynicism that is a betrayal of our values. It will create new dependencies and will prove totally ineffective.”
Rishi Sunak’s spokeswoman rejected the criticism and said: “We don’t agree. We think that our approach is the right one. In terms of breaking the business model of the criminal gangs, we’ll need a strong deterrent.
“We need to make clear that if you come here on a small boat you won’t be able to stay. That is how we will break that business model. And indeed, we’ve seen other partners and other countries around the world explore similar options.”
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Home Secretary James Cleverly added that third-party agreements to tackle migration were “not anything new” and were recognised as international solutions to the illegal migration crisis.
More to come…