President Emmanuel Macron has told Boris Johnson to get serious or stay out of talks about how to curb the flow of people fleeing war and poverty across the Channel.
In a further sign of an escalating diplomatic crisis since the deaths of 27 people on Wednesday, the French leader criticised the UK's decision to issue a five-point plan via Twitter instead of conducting bilateral talks.
The letter to Macron was sent publicly as a tweet in time for the front pages of UK newspapers.
I spoke with Prime Minister Johnson two days ago, in a serious way," Macron said at a press conference on Friday. I do that for my part, as I do with all countries and all leaders. I am surprised by methods when they are not serious.
We don't communicate with each leader on these issues by tweets and letters that we make public. We are not whistleblowers. Come on, he said.
His words came after the French government decided to withdraw an invitation to the home secretary Priti Patel to attend a meeting on the issue.
The French interior minister, G rald Darmanin, wrote to Patel to say that the meeting would proceed without British involvement.
Darmanin told Patel the letter from Johnson to Macron, suggesting France take back people who cross the Channel, was a disappointment. Johnson's posting of the letter on social media made it worse. I need to cancel our meeting in Calais on Sunday. The French government's official spokesperson, Gabriel Attal, has criticized Johnson's letter on French television, calling it mediocre, and wholly inappropriate as regards the form Attal told BFM TV that the letter did not respect all the work done by our coastguards, police, gendarmes and lifeboat crews. It also proposes a relocation agreement, which is clearly not what is needed to solve the problem.
We are tired of this double talk and outsourcing of problems. Attal said: What we need is for the British to send immigration officers to France to examine, on French territory, demands for asylum in Britain. He said that the tone of the letter did not reflect the exchanges that Emmanuel Macron had with Boris Johnson It was as if Boris Johnson regretting leaving Europe because he considers that it is Europe's responsibility to solve the problem. It doesn't work like it does through cooperation. France was going to host ministers from all states with Channel coasts, including Patel, for a meeting on the refugee crisis in Calais on Sunday.
A source close to Darmanin told the Agence France-PresseFrance-Presse and French media that the meeting would be going ahead with ministers from other European countries but said Patel was no longer invited after Johnson's unacceptable letter.
"We consider the British prime minister's public letter to be unacceptable and contrary to the discussions we had with our counterparts," said the source who asked not to be named.
Priti Patel is no longer invited to the inter-ministerial meeting on Sunday, which is maintained in the format of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission. Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, dismissed suggestions that Johnson's letter was sent to generate headlines and insisted it was made in good faith. I can assure our French friends of that and I hope they will reconsider," he told Radio 4's Today programme.
Johnson asked France to immediately take back all migrants who land in England after crossing the Channel.
He said that taking people back would reduce if not stop the crossings, saving thousands of lives by breaking the business model of the criminal gangs behind the trafficking.
Johnson's letter set out areas for greater cooperation with France, including joint border patrols, aerial surveillance and intelligence sharing.
French fishermen on Friday are going to stop entering the Channel Tunnel in protest of fishing rights after Britain and France have a new row, adding to the post-Brexit tensions between Britain and France.
In a further development, the head of a UK trade union representing thousands of Border Force staff has warned that members could be asked to strike if they are asked to push back boats of people.
Patel claimed in parliament on Thursday that Border Force was ready to turn around boats that have come from France and send them back.
The PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said it was shocking that Border Force staff turn boats back, which will clearly be against international law and morally reprehensible.
PCS is reviewing all its options, including taking a judicial review against Priti Patel's plans and a possible industrial response.