On the Sunday that Britain honoured its war dead, France remembered its fallen from the terrible evening of 13 November, 2015. One hundred and thirty Parisians were massacred at various venues across the capital. A subsequent investigation revealed that two of the Islamist terror cell had entered Europe from the Middle East by blending in among migrants.
A year after the Paris atrocity, Monika Hohlmeier MEP, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator on a new European terrorism law, outlined the EU’s determination to keep its citizens safe from future attacks. Hohlmeier placed particular emphasis on tightening the ‘great deficiencies that became visible at the EU’s external borders over the last months’. Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, were given greater resources, notably an increase in their budget from €143m (£123m) in 2015 to €322m (£280m) by 2020. This has had little effect.
France’s benevolence was denounced by Marine Le Pen.
At the start of this year, Geopolitical Intelligence Services warned that Frontex is being overwhelmed by a growing migrant crisis.
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