France set to lift ban on police stopping migrant boats at sea

The French government is set to lift a ban on stopping migrant boats at sea for the first time in an effort to reduce illegal Channel crossings.

Bruno Retailleau, the French interior minister, said on Thursday that he was seeking a law change to allow migrants to be tackled out of boats in shallow water.

The rule change will also allow police to use their own boats for the first time to take on people-smugglers carrying migrants to the UK on overloaded vessels.

French law prohibits police from tackling a migrant boat once it has entered the water, leaving officers only able to launch a rescue operation.

People-smuggling gangs have begun using “taxi boats”, which remain in the water and collect migrants from beaches in Northern France. The tactic allows smugglers to evade capture, forcing police to conduct rescue operations rather than arresting the perpetrators.

The method sprang up after the UK and France blocked several rivers leading to the Channel with floating dams, to prevent small boats from accessing the sea.

It has since become the most popular way for small boats to set off from France, and officials are concerned that the practice will increase the number of boats crossing when the weather improves.

During talks with Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, on Thursday, Mr Retailleau said he was considering a variety of legal changes to step up enforcement against small boats.

“We need to rethink our approach so that we can intercept the boats,” he said. “We must be able to intercept them within 300 metres of the coast. They have a naval service, the gendarmerie, and they must be able to intervene in shallow waters.”

He added that he hoped to restore the offence of an “illegal stay” in France, which would allow the police to arrest migrants and smugglers before they attempt a crossing. Currently, migrants who attempt to cross the Channel are only considered to have committed an offence when they launch the boat.

Ms Cooper and Mr Retailleau met in Le Touquet, a coastal resort town that has been plagued by migrant crossings in recent years. It was the first visit by a British home secretary to northern France since 2020.

The two flew over the coastline in a French coastguard plane fitted with thermal imaging technology designed to catch migrants in the sand dunes before they leave the beach.

They also agreed to reallocate £7 million of funding provided to France as part of the Sandhurst Treaty, an agreement signed under the Conservatives.

The measures include a new unit of 12 detectives, stationed in Dunkirk, who will use intelligence from Britain and France to hunt for people-smugglers operating in the area. The Home Office said the team would have dual powers to investigate and prosecute criminal gangs, which officials said would allow faster convictions.

Other measures include a new group of specialist enforcement officers, modelled on a taskforce sent to the beaches to reduce crossings during the Paris Olympics, and more drone operators to find migrants and smugglers from the air.

Mr Retailleau and his French government colleagues are facing opposition from the public over the number of migrants travelling through the north of the country.

National Rally, the hard-Right populist party, has its highest levels of support in the north of France, including the Pas-de-Calais region, where most small boats leave the beaches.

The interior minister has promised to provide funding to local farmers whose property has been damaged by migrants if they incurred costs that are not covered by insurance.

On Thursday, Ms Cooper said that violence by gangs against police on the beaches was a “total disgrace” and called for further cooperation between Britain and France to tackle the ringleaders.

“Criminal smuggler gangs are running an appalling and dangerous trade in people, undermining UK and French border security, causing huge damage and putting lives at risk,” she said. “The gangs operate across borders, so law enforcement needs to operate across borders too.

“That is why our joint work with France is so important and we are strengthening our cooperation with new specialist enforcement teams to go after these dangerous gangs.”

Mr Retailleau, who was previously critical of the UK Government for not clamping down on “pull factors” for migrants trying to reach Britain, said on Thursday that he believed the Labour administration was “taking back control”.

He did not repeat his call, first made in November, for the UK to increase the number of safe and legal asylum routes to Britain.

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