French authorities have halted small boats at sea in the Channel on 10 occasions since the spring, officials said on Friday, in a disclosure that comes amid an intensifying political debate over the UK's strategy to stop Channel crossings.
Maritime Prefect officers have been using "intervention tactics" to board or control vessels at sea and take asylum seekers back to France, according to officials. The announcement appears designed to counter claims from Conservative and Reform politicians that French police are refusing to intervene.
Political criticism and French response
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, last week confronted French police on a beach near Boulogne and uploaded footage to X of an officer saying: "Our order is to let them go. We just have to say to them, 'Don't do that. It's dangerous.'" Earlier this week, Reform MP Lee Anderson visited Calais and said the French police were "literally waving these people on to boats."
In an unusual intervention, the director of maritime and small boats at Border Security Command, Charlie Eastaugh, defended French efforts. "The incidents we have seen in the Channel over the last few weeks are a stark reminder of the dangers posed by criminal gangs exploiting people for profit," he said. "It is easy to look at out-of-context images and think little is happening to stop these crossings – this is simply not true."
Eastaugh said French officers had been working "tirelessly" to disrupt launches, including "facing violent people with weapons, dispersing huge crowds, arresting smugglers, seizing equipment and collating vital evidence to help our prosecutions." Officials said every confrontation with asylum seekers was assessed by commanders and individual officers, balancing the safety of their officers with that of the public, including large groups of often agitated people and gang members.
Statistics and the UK-France deal
The French government has said it prevented 185 "small boat crossing events" in the three months since a new £660m UK-France deal was signed in April. A small boat event is defined as stopping launches, seizing equipment including boats, engines and lifejackets, and arresting smugglers. The Home Office, citing French police figures, said that since the deal was struck three months ago, 61% of small boats have been intercepted – a five per cent increase compared to last year.
The UK-France Border Security deal agreed in April includes £501m over three years to strengthen operations in northern France and £161m for new approaches. Extra police units have been active on French beaches, including a 50-person riot squad. Since March, 12 "taxi boats" have been stopped from moving further up the coast and loading more migrants.
Channel crossings are down about 40% compared to last year, and 15,897 migrants have crossed so far this year, down 43% on the same time last year, and an 18% drop from the same point in 2024, according to official figures. But Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the "UK-France deal is already having a real impact," while acknowledging that gangs are adapting.
Gang adaptation and records
Smuggling gangs have started loading more people into single boats. Earlier this month, a record 230 people made the journey in a single boat, surpassing the previous record of 165 migrants who reached the UK in a single boat on 23 July – a vessel estimated to be the same size as a standard bus at 13m long. The gangs have also shifted launch points further south, including from Belgium and as far as Dieppe, about 70 miles from the UK compared with the traditional 27 miles from Calais.
Footage released by French police shows officers racing across a beach in jeeps to intercept a launch, then slashing the abandoned boat with a knife. Other footage shows migrants throwing objects at police, who respond with pepper spray.
Charities have warned that escalating police activity is putting asylum seekers at risk. Utopia 56, which three weeks ago gathered evidence of 35 CS gas canisters being fired by riot police near Dunkirk at migrants trying to reach a small boat, said at the time: "We can see police pressure on the beach is putting more people at risk. We saw it last week and we are seeing it now and we have seen it for some time. It is terrible."
The villa row
The political dispute took a new turn when the Daily Express reported that dozens of police were guarding an empty beachside property in Le Touquet, around 20 miles south of Boulogne, linked to President Emmanuel Macron. The villa was bought by a family real estate firm linked to Macron's wife Bridgette, and the Express witnessed officers, tactical support vans and temporary police huts guarding the building site.
Chris Philp said: "French police can apparently spare dozens of officers to guard an empty building, but cannot stop mega dinghies launching a few miles down the same coast." He added that Channel crossings preventions were "down by half over the past year" and repeated his claim that French police were under instruction not to intervene.
The Conservatives described the Home Office announcement as a "joke," while Reform UK has proposed using the Royal Navy to intercept boats, a plan France has called a "violation of French sovereignty."
The French interior ministry was approached for comment on the villa story, and a building permit has been issued for the property's extension and renovation, according to the Express.