The home secretary, Priti Patel, and her French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, said they wanted to make the route used by more than 8,000 people this year unviable for the practice to continue.
The French Republic has agreed to double the number of French police patrolling a 150km stretch of coastline targeted by people-smuggling networks, the Home Office has not yet said how many more officers would be deployed.
It was also agreed that an enhanced package of surveillance technology, with drones, radar equipment, cameras and optronic binoculars would be deployed.
Charity organisations have criticised the move with Amnesty International UK said the deal was “profoundly disappointing”.
Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said: “This package of surveillance, drones and radar sounds like the government is preparing for a military enemy.
“These are ordinary people, from engineers to farmers and their families – they are not criminals and they do not want to make this terrifying journey.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel said speaking inside the Foreign Office following talks with Mr Gérald Darmanin, she said: “We know that the French authorities have stopped over 5,000 migrants from crossing into the United Kingdom, we’ve had hundreds of arrests and that’s because of the joint intelligence and communications that we share between both our authorities.
“This new package today that I have just signed with my French counterpart, the French interior minister, effectively doubles the number of police on the French beaches, it invests in more technologies and surveillance – more radar technology that support the law enforcement effort – and on top of that we are now sharing in terms of toughening up our border security.”
Ms Patel said the number of migrants making the crossing had grown exponentially, in part due to good weather this year, and blamed trafficking gangs for “facilitating” dangerous journeys.
“We should not lose sight of the fact that illegal migration exists for one fundamental reason: that is because there are criminal gangs – people traffickers – facilitating this trade,” Patel said.
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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