Calais has become a political battle ground for France, as pressure on politicians to tear up the Le Touquet accord, the deal between France and Britain that keeps border checks on the French side of the Channel, has increased.

Alain Juppé, the current favourite to become the next French president, told the Guardian last week that he wanted to completely renegotiate Le Touquet. “We can’t tolerate what is going on in Calais, the image is disastrous for our country and there are also extremely serious economic and security consequences for the people of Calais,” Juppé said in an interview in Paris.

“So the first thing is to denounce the Le Touquet accord. We cannot accept making the selection on French territory of people that Britain does or doesn’t want. It’s up to Britain to do that job,” he said.

Theresa May rejected the suggestion from the French presidential hopeful that the border, which keeps thousands of migrants from British shores, could be moved from the French port of Calais to Kent.

A source made clear that the prime minister would expect any French leader to maintain the agreement. France and the UK concluded the Treaty of Le Touquet on 4 February 2003. The bilateral agreement places part of Britain’s border with France in Calais, meaning that British border forces can carry out passport checks in Calais rather than in Dover.

Political rhetoric around Calais has heightened in recent months following British voters’ decision to leave the European Union. Following the vote, Xavier Bertrand, head of the Hauts-de-France region that includes the camp in Calais, insisted the bilateral agreement had to be “denounced” – in other words, unilaterally terminated. “The British people have chosen to take back their freedom, they must take back their borders,” the former centre-right minister told the Telegraph at the time.

But in August British and French interior ministers confirmed they would continue with the treaty under which British border checks are carried out on French soil. A joint statement issued by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, and her French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, said they would work together to strengthen security around the “shared border” in Calais and “strongly diminish” the migratory pressures that have attracted at least 7,000 migrants to the Channel tunnel port.

The resurgence of Nicolas Sarkozy – who is one of the frontrunners to be the election candidate for Les Républicains – has added pressure upon the French socialist president, François Hollande.

During a visit to the camp in August, Sarkozy – who as interior minister signed up to the treaty in 2003 as part of a deal to close a former migrant centre in Sangatte – suggested migrants should be processed across the Channel. “Those who are here in Calais and who want to cross to England should be processed in England by the English,” he said.

In September, Hollande took a harder line on Calais saying that Britain had to accept more migrants and warned that it could not avoid its “responsibilities to France”.



In his first visit to Calais since he was elected in 2012, the French president promised to “completely and definitively” close the Calais migrant camp by the end of the year but warned that Brexit did not mean that the UK could “waive its obligations” and must “play its part” in resolving the crisis.