With President Macron’s visit to Calais on 17 January, and today’s UK-French summit, the issue of migrants and the Le Touquet treaty is back in the news. Le Touquet was an agreement between Britain and France in 2003. It put in place British border controls at Calais and Dunkirk, and French controls at Dover, with the aim of speeding up lorry and car traffic across the channel. Similar “juxtaposed controls” have been in place at the Eurostar high speed train terminals in London, Paris and Brussels since the Channel tunnel opened in 1993. These controls work very effectively (most of the time) allowing an extraordinary volume of travellers and freight to flow smoothly between the two countries, to the benefit…

Source: The Times January 18, 2018 00:06 UTC