The French Interior Minister, Mr Daniel Vaillant, met the British Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, late yesterday to discuss the controversy over a spate of illegal cross-Channel immigration attempts.
The meeting was called last week following a series of high-profile attempts by migrants to break into the French terminal of the Channel tunnel and sneak aboard trains bound for Britain.
The focus of the discussions between Mr Vaillant and Mr Blunkett was the controversial Red Cross refugee camp near the tunnel entrance in Sangatte, near Calais in northern France, which some in Britain argue encourages illegal immigration.
British officials said Mr Blunkett was pushing for French action to curb the influx of asylum seekers, many from the Red Cross camp at Sangatte.
The two ministers also discussed French plans for a second centre in northern France to accommodate two or three hundred of the migrants who are currently crammed in the overcrowded Sangatte camp, officials said.
The meeting comes after Eurotunnel lost its legal attempt to secure the immediate closure of the refugee camp, which is near the Channel Tunnel.
A magistrate in Lille said Eurotunnel had failed to prove the urgency of its case for shutting down the camp, which has become the centre for illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Channel.
But the battle by the tunnel's operator will go on - with a full court hearing into its complaint against the running of the camp as a home for asylum seekers going ahead in the next few months.
The meeting in Paris went ahead despite Tuesday's atrocities in the US.
Mr Blunkett travelled to France after attending an emergency Downing Street meeting of the Civil Contingencies Committee.
The Home Secretary has promised to implement "rigorous and hard-headed" policies designed to deter unwanted asylum seekers from seeking to enter Britain.
Last weekend he said he was "nearly ready" to take decisions on reforming asylum policy and the work permit system.
He promised coherent policies making up a "jigsaw of national action, European-wide and co-ordinated programmes and an international perspective".
It has been suggested that France could invite British police to help control access to the Channel Tunnel at Calais.
A Home Office spokeswoman said the idea had been considered, but stressed it would have to be part of a wider package.
Meanwhile, Mr Blunkett has been urged to mount a crackdown on asylum seekers amid new fears that terrorists might be slipping into Britain under the guise of refugees.
Mr Michael Fabricant, Conservative MP for Lichfield, who is pressing the argument with Mr Blunkett, said it could not be ruled out that terrorists had already got into the Britain from Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran and were among the thousands who had "disappeared into the community and slipped into anonymity".
However, Mr Blunkett said: "This is an irresponsible statement by an irresponsible individual at an entirely inappropriate time."