France to End One-In-One-Out Migrant Returns Deal With Britain

Dover Harbour. France's decision to end the one-in-one-out returns deal removes one of the few legal removal routes for people who cross the Channel in small boats.

France will bring the "one in, one out" migrant returns agreement with Britain to an end, Paris has confirmed. The pilot scheme, the first deal under which France agreed to take back migrants turned away from the UK, will be allowed to expire on 1 October.

The French Interior Ministry confirmed the decision to Le Monde on Wednesday morning, saying: "We are discussing with the British the terms of exiting the agreement." London had pressed hard to keep the deal alive. According to Le Monde, Britain "made every effort" to secure an extension, and Andy Burnham raised the issue again with Emmanuel Macron during their meeting in London in early September.

Key facts

• France's Interior Ministry confirmed to Le Monde on 30 September that the one-in-one-out pilot will not be renewed when it expires on 1 October.
• The deal was signed in July 2025 and began operating from August, with each migrant returned to France matched by an asylum seeker admitted to Britain through a legal route.
• Around 1,400 people were returned to France under the scheme, a fraction of total Channel arrivals since it began operating.
• Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told Parliament on 15 September that each return cost an average of £56,000 and that implementation had been "difficult".
• Paris now wants any future arrangement to be agreed at EU level rather than bilaterally with Britain.

How the deal worked

The agreement was built around a simple exchange mechanism. For every person sent back to France after arriving in the UK by small boat, Britain would admit an asylum seeker from France through a legal channel. It was a genuine novelty in cross-Channel relations. France had refused similar arrangements for years, and only agreed after Bruno Retailleau, now a presidential candidate for Les Républicains, became interior minister in September 2024.

For ministers in London, the appeal was obvious. Small-boat crossings had been rising since 2018, and any mechanism that let the UK return arrivals to France for the first time looked like a step toward deterring the crossings. The Government presented the deal as a hard-won breakthrough and said it would make migrants think twice before paying smugglers for a place on a boat.

Why Paris pulled out

The scheme did not produce the results either side hoped for. Le Monde reports that around 50,000 people attempted the crossing in 2025, with nearly 17,000 more arriving in the first seven months of 2026. The 1,400 returns secured under the deal represent a small share of those totals. The Times reported earlier this month that the figure amounted to roughly four per cent of Channel crossings since the treaty came into effect.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has been open about the shortcomings. Questioned by the Assemblée Nationale on 15 June, he conceded the agreement was not a fully effective deterrent and said France should not have to carry the scheme alone. His argument, repeated since, is that any future arrangement should be folded into a wider agreement between the EU and Britain.

London has acknowledged the difficulties too. Mahmood told MPs on 15 September that running the scheme had proved "difficult" and that the number of people sent back had been "relatively small". She put the average cost of each return at £56,000. The Guardian, meanwhile, revealed that around 50 people sent back to France later crossed to the UK again by small boat.

The deal also faced legal and moral opposition. Around 15 refugee advocacy organisations challenged it in the French courts, arguing it treated people as interchangeable numbers. The challenge did not succeed.

An uncomfortable week for the Government

The decision lands at a difficult moment for ministers. The Government points out that Channel crossings have fallen by around 40 per cent since early 2026, but a string of recent incidents has kept the issue in the headlines.

In mid-September, two boats carrying around 20 people evaded the coast guard and landed without any checks being carried out. Footage of men stepping onto the pebbles of a Kent beach drew sharp criticism from opposition politicians. The Prime Minister visited Dover in late September to showcase a doubling of National Crime Agency officers tackling organised immigration crime, and on Monday he promised to "change our tactics" after a record 230 people arrived in a single boat.

Reform UK has made the crossings central to its attack on the Government. In early September, Nigel Farage's party signed a memorandum of understanding with Jordan Bardella's Rassemblement National under which a future Reform government would send asylum seekers arriving from France back across the Channel. The move was condemned in France, with Retailleau accusing the RN of selling out to the English.

Le Monde notes that losing the deal also removes a legal immigration pathway, however limited. Since Brexit, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has contained no provisions on asylum and immigration. Once migrants reach British shores by boat, their chances of being allowed to stay are strong: the asylum approval rate stood at 71 per cent between 2018 and 2024.

What happens next

With the agreement lapsing on 1 October, the immediate question is what, if anything, replaces it. Paris wants an EU-wide mechanism, but that would require agreement across the bloc and with London, and no bridging arrangement has been announced. The Times reported earlier this month that the Home Office would not comment on speculation but insisted discussions on renewal were continuing; France's announcement suggests those talks have now run their course.

For the Government, the focus will turn to the alternatives Burnham has signalled. He told the Labour conference he would use this year's UK-EU summit to pursue a closer relationship with Europe, including a possible migration pact, arguing that Brexit had weakened Britain's control over immigration rather than strengthened it.

What is not yet known is whether Paris and London will agree interim arrangements for removals, how the end of the legal admission route will affect asylum processing, and whether the EU-wide scheme France favours is achievable in the near term. The Home Office had not issued a public response at the time of publication.

The bottom line is that one of the few formal removal routes for small-boat arrivals is about to disappear. Britain will have to rely on domestic enforcement, deportations under existing agreements, and whatever new arrangements it can negotiate with France and the EU. The coming weeks will show whether the Government can put something in its place.

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Sources

• Le Monde, "France to end 'one in, one out' immigration agreement with the United Kingdom" – 30 September 2026.
• The Times, "France 'tells UK it wants to end one in, one out migrants deal'" – reported earlier in September 2026.