His Calais visit coincided with Mr Macron’s speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg to mark the start of France’s six-month rotating EU presidency.

Mr Macron reiterated his view that Britain’s migration system favours clandestine migration and does not allow for asylum seekers to seek legal ways into the country.

He told MEPs: “Ultimately we cannot solve this problem if the way in which migratory flows as seen from the British side doesn’t change.”

“Our British friends at the moment are trying to adopt an approach that prevailed at the start the 1980s whereby when you’ve got a level of acceptable economic illegal migration, you allow people to work without papers because it’s helpful the economy.

“But that doesn’t take on board the reality of migratory flows now,” he said, calling for “legal, stable migration routes to the UK”.