BBC Photo
Source: BBC News
DST News: France is retreating from its recent promise to take stronger action at sea to stop small boats crossing the English Channel, according to several sources who spoke to the BBC.
Officials and analysts suggest that France’s current political instability is partly responsible for the shift — a development that undermines the UK government’s efforts to curb migrant crossings. Meanwhile, dangerously overcrowded inflatable boats continue to set off almost daily from tidal canals near Dunkirk.
UK border security chief Martin Hewitt has already voiced his “frustration” over French delays. Now, multiple French sources say that plans for a tougher “maritime doctrine” — which would empower patrol boats to intercept and tow inflatable vessels back to shore — are proving empty. “It’s just a political stunt. It’s all talk,” said one individual familiar with French maritime security operations.
The Channel’s maritime prefecture told the BBC that the proposed doctrine is still “under study.”
Former French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, credited for pushing a tougher stance against people smugglers and for working closely with the UK, is no longer in office following recent government reshuffles. His departure has left the policy’s future uncertain.
The initiative gained momentum last July during a Macron–Starmer summit, where both leaders discussed intercepting “taxi boats” — the smugglers’ inflatable crafts that pick up migrants close to the French coastline. Although police interventions at sea are rare due to safety concerns, BBC footage from before the summit showed French officers wading into the surf near Boulogne and slashing a migrant boat caught in the waves — a move hailed in London as a “significant moment.”
At the time, a senior source in France’s interior ministry told the BBC that maritime operations would begin “within days” following a policy revision. However, since Retailleau’s exit, the plan appears to have stalled amid France’s broader political distractions.
According to Peter Walsh of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, “It’s possible that these new at-sea measures might never happen.”
