PARIS, Sept 30 - France and the United Kingdom (UK) are discussing ending their "one in, one out" Channel migration deal, a French Interior Ministry source said on Wednesday, with Paris unwilling to extend a pilot scheme due to expire on Thursday.
The agreement, announced last year in a bid to curb small-boat crossings of the English Channel, allowed the UK to return undocumented migrants arriving by small boat to France in exchange for taking an equal number of asylum seekers with family links in the UK.
"We are discussing the terms of withdrawal from the agreement with the British," the source said.
France's Interior Ministry declined to comment on why Paris wanted to wind down the scheme. The UK's Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Appearing before parliament in June, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the UK remained an attractive destination for undocumented migrants because they could easily find work there.
He added that France wanted to focus on "a more European approach to combating illegal migration."
"France cannot be expected to bear sole responsibility for controlling an EU external border whose irregular crossings are primarily explained by shortcomings in controls by countries of first entry and by secondary movements within the Schengen area," Nuñez told French lawmakers.
He noted that 951 people had been returned to France under the "one in, one out" scheme, while 935 people had been granted legal entry to the UK.
According to the UK Interior Ministry's data, the number of migrants who successfully crossed the Channel in 2026 was down more than 40 per cent by late September from the same period a year earlier.
