Just as the news was coming through that a total of almost 900 illegal immigrants had reached Malta by June 30 this year - an increase of 16 per cent over last year - and an additional 180 immigrants arrived the night before, the Ambassador of France was launching the agenda of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the next six months.
It was, therefore, encouraging to hear him announce that one of the topmost priorities of the work programme of the French Presidency would be the completion of a European Pact on Immigration and Asylum.
For Malta, the immigration pact represents an outstanding opportunity - one which is unlikely to be repeated for some time - to ensure the incorporation of a formal commitment to some form of intra-EU burden-sharing mechanism. Yet, from the reports so far published about the pact, it would appear that burden-sharing features not at all.
The pact contains commitments to a better protection of Europe by controlling its external borders "in the spirit of solidarity"; the organisation of legal immigration "in the spirit of shared responsibility"; the construction of a "Europe of asylum" and the promotion of co-development and development aid.
The conviction that burden-sharing does not form part of the pact was given greater credence by a statement last week by the new Justice Commissioner, Jacques Barrot, a Frenchman, that he would prefer strengthening "solidarity mechanisms" than having a burden-sharing system in place. The commissioner also indicated that he was not favourable to the specific burden -sharing proposal made by Malta and Spain last year. If this is, indeed, the position set out in the pact, and the official position of the Commission, then the situation for Malta is unconscionable and unacceptable. Would Mr Barrot be so sanguine about burden sharing if 27,000 illegal immigrants - the equivalent in proportional terms of the 180 who arrived in Malta in one night last week - had entered France that night?
It would appear that the immigration pact being proposed by France contains little of substance to help alleviate Malta's growing plight. The much-vaunted Frontex Nautilus III operation in the central Mediterranean is a lame duck without Libya's cooperation and involvement.
Indeed, some might argue that, in its present configuration, it may actually be making the situation worse for Malta - no matter how many additional military assets the French and other countries promise to throw at the problem.
The time for EU soft-soaping Malta about sharing its burden must end. The crucial need now is for Malta to insist on the insertion of a specific commitment to burden sharing in the immigration pact.
While such a mechanism will be difficult, though not impossible, to negotiate, it is vital on an area of overriding national interest that Malta's dire predicament is fully recognised in a meaningful and practical way if the cry of "solidarity" is not simply to remain so much empty EU rhetoric.
In its present form, from Malta's perspective, the immigration pact is barely worth the paper it is written on. Unless there are changes to it that give Malta some hope of equitable sharing of its burden with others in the EU, the government should refuse to be a party to it. For illegal immigration in Malta, this is le crunch.