France will suspend the “one in, one out” pilot agreement signed with Great Britain in July 2025, aimed at preventing illegal migration, from October 1.
The French Ministry of Interior stated that the terms of withdrawal from the agreement with London are currently being discussed. Paris believes that the mechanism, which has been in force for more than a year, has not yielded the expected results.
Modern.az reports that under the agreement, a portion of migrants who reached Great Britain by crossing the English Channel in small boats were returned to France, in exchange for which Great Britain legally accepted a certain number of asylum seekers in France.
However, in 2025, approximately 50,000 people attempted to cross the English Channel in small boats, and in the first seven months of 2026, this figure was close to 17,000. The number of people returned from Great Britain to France under the agreement was only 1,400.
The financial costs of the program were also quite high. According to British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmud, returning each person to France cost an average of 56,000 pounds sterling (approximately 65,000 euros).
Paris, seeking a new approach to migration, proposes that after the agreement ends, the problem be resolved within the framework of broader cooperation between the European Union and Great Britain.
