THE government’s new deal with France to prevent people from crossing the Channel is “heartless and anti-refugee,” human rights groups warned today.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced today that Britain will pay France nearly half a billion pounds over the next three years to prevent small boats from crossing into the country.

He praised the “unprecedented” £478 million package to fund a new detention centre in France and hundreds of extra law enforcement officers on French shores.

The announcement came after the PM held talks with President Emmanuel Macron during a summit in Paris, and as the government proposed to penalise Channel crossings through its Illegal Migration Bill.

Amnesty International UK refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds said that seeking asylum is a “vital human right” and not something that can be “banned or withdrawn for political convenience.”

He said: “The UK and French governments should make an agreement to share responsibility for providing asylum to people — not more heartless anti-refugee measures that simply seek to absolve the UK from any responsibility at all.

“The UK receives a relatively small number of the world’s refugees, and it increasingly treats these people atrociously.

“Fortress Britain policies won’t work and people will continue to drown in the Channel if ministers stubbornly refuse to make safe routes available to people seeking asylum — particularly when they have family or other strong connections here.”

Mr Valdez-Symonds said that the government has “deliberately destroyed its own asylum system and is now legislating to try to make that destruction permanent.”

“Throwing more money at the French, the Rwandan or any other government cannot fix what the UK government has wrecked,” he said, calling for a major change in direction.

Afghan refugee Mohammad Asif, director for the Afghan Human Rights Foundation, said the Bill would not “stop the boats, but drive asylum-seekers underground.”

Mr Asif said asylum seekers and refugees have become a target for the government to blame crises on, and the government has already failed those who have come to Britain.

“If you failed in your policies, fail on the cost-of-living crisis, energy crisis, petrol crisis, mortgage crisis, economy crisis — the easy target for you is to blame asylum seekers for all the problems in Britain,” he said.