French police have punctured Channel migrants’ boats at sea for the first time in a change of tactics backed by the UK Government. The Telegraph has more.
Officers entered the sea on a beach near Boulogne-sur-Mer on Friday armed with knives to puncture the dinghies in water that was shallow enough for the migrants to wade back to shore.
Dozens of migrants, including some women and children, had to give up their attempt to reach the UK as the boat started to deflate and sink.
Ms Cooper, the Home Secretary, said it was a “different” and “welcome” strategy that was part of wider plans for French border police and gendarmes to start intervening in shallow waters within 300 metres of the shore to stop migrants’ boats leaving.
The new strategy is expected to be unveiled at next week’s Anglo-French summit when Emmanuel Macron comes to the UK for a three-day state visit.
It comes as a record 20,422 migrants have reached the UK so far this year, up nearly 50% on last year and the highest number in the first six months of any year since the Channel crossings started in 2018. Some 5,170 arrived in June alone.
Ms Cooper has been in talks with the French for their border sea patrols and officers to intercept people smugglers’ taxi boats not only in the shallow waters as they leave the beaches, but also when they make their way from rivers and inland waterways to pick up the migrants.
“I’ve been talking to the French interior minister about the importance of action in French waters,” Ms Cooper said.
She added: “That’s what we need in order to prevent boat crossings. We’ve seen criminal gangs this year really exploiting the fact that the French rules for too long have meant that they could not intervene in French waters.”
“The French interior minister has been determined to change those rules. He has been working to do that. I’ve been working very closely with him on it.
“We do think that there’s a wider range of interventions that can be used. Our small boats operational command has been working closely with the French authorities on what those options might be.
“That work is still underway, but both of us, as interior ministers, the French minister and I, are pressing for this to happen as swiftly as possible and as extensively as possible.”
This week they discovered knives. What will they discover next week – deportations?
Worth reading in full.
Watch footage of the dinghy-slashing on the BBC here.
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