France doubles riot police presence on northern beaches in latest bid to stop small boat crossings

Additional officers from the Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité (CRS), France’s main anti-riot unit, will be sent to the Channel coast until March 2027.

They will be on standby for so-called red days, when favourable weather and sea conditions make crossing attempts highly likely.

According to the Home Office, CRS officers will have specialist public order powers to stop large groups from gathering and boarding boats.

They will be funded by the three-year £662million UK-France deal agreed in April.

According to French operational data provided by the Home Office, authorities have prevented some 50,000 attempts by migrants to cross the Channel by boat since the 2024 general election.

Smuggling gangs have been launching dinghies from a wider area in recent months, in an effort to evade French authorities.

Earlier this month, a dinghy set off from near Utah Beach in Normandy before being brought into Gosport in Hampshire.

Departures so far west have been rare in recent years, but it was the third such crossing in the space of a month.

Recorded Channel crossings are at their lowest since 2021, with 20,935 arrivals so far this year.

This is down 42 per cent on this time last year (36,244), and 19 per cent below the figure at this stage in 2023 (25,931)

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Our collective efforts, on both sides of the Channel, are having an impact.

“Every prevention made by officers is a blow to the smugglers behind this trade. But we are not complacent.

“We will be relentless in pursuing the criminal gangs and bearing down on the small boats.”

Labour is looking to keep up with the ongoing migrant crisis after the “one in, one out” deal with France, aimed at curbing Channel crossings, was scrapped last month.

Under the scheme, people who arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel could be detained and returned to France in exchange for an equivalent number of asylum seekers who applied through a safe and legal route.

As of October 1, some 1,500 asylum seekers had been deported, while slightly fewer came to Britain from France, GB News understands.

Deportation flights will continue in the coming weeks for those already detained.

Meanwhile, Reform UK came under fire from all sides after the party’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said the party would let the Royal Marines use “lethal force” against migrants crossing the Channel without permission.

Conservative leader and Mr Jenrick’s former colleague Kemi Badenoch said: “Talking about using lethal force is talking about killing people. That’s basically what they’re saying.

“We want to make sure that we can patrol our borders robustly but we also need to speak in a way that the public can recognise that we’re taking great care with people’s lives.”

Labour Party Chair Bridget Phillipson described the proposal as “disgusting and illegal”, adding: “Our armed forces are not going to start opening fire on unarmed civilians, and Reform are dragging their own reputations and credibility into the gutter by suggesting it.”