As has been noted, not a single case of female genital mutilation has been prosecuted in the UK, despite the fact that it was outlawed in 1985, and the law strengthened in 2003. As Sue Lloyd Roberts reports, things are different in France: they take it seriously. So...the girls are sent over here:
About 20,000 children in England and Wales, and about the same number in France, are deemed "at risk" every year.
The laws which made FGM illegal were introduced in France and England at about the same time, in the mid-1980s.
But whereas some 100 parents and practitioners of FGM have been convicted in France, there has never been a single prosecution in the UK.
I meet Isabelle Gillette-Faye, a seasoned campaigner against FGM, at the Gare du Nord in Paris.
She is trying her best not to be rude about the English.
"In England, you are very respectful of your immigrants," she says.
"It is very different in France. They have to integrate and they have to obey our laws."
She walks me over to the Eurostar platform to tell me the story of two little girls who were about to board the train headed for St. Pancras to be mutilated in the UK.
"It was a Friday. We heard just in time. They had tickets for the Saturday.
"A family member tipped us off. We told the police and they were stopped from making the journey."
The parents were cautioned. Had they gone ahead with the mutilations and been found out, they would have been imprisoned for up to 13 years.
"We simply will not tolerate this practice," Isabelle explains.
Does she think many French children have been cut in the UK?
"Yes, because you do not care," she says.
Here's Nick Cohen, on "the racism of the respectable".
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