February 2023 marked 20 years since the French and British governments set in stone the externalisation of British border controls into the north of France, through the Touquet Treaty. 20 years later, the Touquet agreements remain a founding act of the hostile immigration policy implemented on the Channel and North Sea coast. Since the signing of the treaty, nearly 400 people have died at the border. Many others have disappeared, and thousands have been harassed and injured. Two in-depth reports documenting the crisis at the border caused by successive bilateral agreements have been newly translated into English from their original French. The reports illuminate the connections between hostile immigration policies on both sides of the Channel. Since 1998, 1.28 billion euros have been spent on enforcing the UK-France border and the situation for exiled people has only worsened. These reports investigate and expose the harassment, surveillance, and violence carried out against people on the move at this border, financed by the UK Government through these bilateral agreements, to prevent people from reaching the UK.   

Originally published by the Plateforme des Soutiens aux Migrant.e.s in 2022, the first report, "Investigating 30 Years of the Political Factory of Deterrence”, was written by political scientist Pierre Bonnevalle. It analyses 30 years of a costly and ineffective policy at the UK-France border, built through a series of bilateral agreements between the two countries, domestic migration policies, and increased militarisation and surveillance. The second report, "ON THE BORDER, Life in transit at the French-British border”, was written by the anthropologist Marta Lotto and focuses on the experiences of people on the move who end up blocked at the border, trying to reach the UK. She reports on the reflections, analyses, and perceptions of the people she interviewed from March to August 2021 in from Caen to Grande-Synthe, by way of Calais, Ouistreham, Cherbourg, St. Hilaire Cottes, Ranville et Herzeele.