French anti-riot police to patrol beaches to stop small boat crossings to UK

Fifty more riot officers will be deployed on French beaches to tackle small boats launching further along the coast in a bid to reach Britain, the Home Office has announced.

New data released by the government on Wednesday showed that more than 50,000 attempts by migrants to cross the Channel on dinghies have been prevented since the 2024 general election.

In a bid to crack down on boats launching further along the northern French coastline, the riot police unit will be doubled from 50 to 100 dedicated officers. This is in addition to 1,050 officers from a range of units already deployed to tackle the attempted crossings.

The new police are funded by a £662m deal, which sees the UK pay for boosted security resources in northern France in an attempt to slash the numbers of people making the journey.

Additional officers from the Compagnie Republicaine de Securite (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.

The CRS officers will be equipped with specialist public order powers to stop large groups gathering and boarding boats, the department said.

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 the Utah Beach area of Normandy before being brought into Gosport in Hampshire.

Departures from such a westerly point have been rare in recent years but it was the third such crossing in the space of a month. The provisional total for Channel crossings this year is 20,935.

This is down 42 per cent on this time last year and 23 per cent below the figure at this stage in 2024.

French police managed to intercept a “taxi boat” that had set off from Belgium and entered French waters at the end of September, the Home Office said.

And in the same month, French security forces seized a boat that around 100 people were preparing to board.

Since the UK-France funding deal was agreed in April, there has been a 24 per cent increase in the number of French boots on the ground, the government said.

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.”