migrants denounce the sometimes violent techniques of the police in the Channel

While the number of migrant crossings to England has increased significantly since 2024, an important system is trying to hold back departures. franceinfo was able to collect testimonies from migrants who denounce particularly heavy-handed methods.

Over the first four months of the year, 8,000 people managed to reach the English coast, including 800 over the Easter weekend. This is a new record that has been reached for this first quarter of 2024. Under pressure from England, the French authorities are scrambling to restrict departures, and franceinfo has collected testimonies from migrants, who say they have suffered what is appears to be police violence.

Franceinfo followed an association which helps migrants, Utopia 56, during one of their night maraudes. In the car, it’s 3 a.m., and at sea, the weather is mild: “It’s clearly a window.” for departures, explains Axel, the coordinator of the Calais branch. It already falls under “echoes of people who are at sea”, and expects there to be a lot of people on the coast. Indeed, that night, 700 people will succeed in their crossing. But dozens have also failed.

Cutting a boat with a knife

At 3:45 a.m., the Utopia team received a call from a group of migrants: people were reportedly “wet”with children. “We’re going to go see what’s going on.”, Axel decides, to see what help they can provide. In the alley of a housing estate, 500 meters from Hardelot beach, around thirty people, mostly Syrians, are wet from head to toe.

The Utopia team distributes tea and dry clothes, the migrants light a fire on the sidewalk, and tongues loosen: “We boarded the zodiacsays a man, then the police came and attacked us. They threw tear gas at us, even though there were children and elderly women in the zodiac.” All confirm this story. A tear gas grenade even landed inside the inflatable which was already at sea. But that’s not all: “The boat was about ten or fifteen meters from the beachreports another man, and three police officers approached with a knife and punctured the tubes with the knife.” “Everyone ended up in the waterdescribes a companion, it was very dangerous. The police didn’t help me.” “The water was very deepadds the first man, and three or four people almost drowned.”

An impressive device partly financed by London

It should be noted that the law of the sea is clear on this subject. The police are prohibited from intercepting, and even more so from destroying, a boat once it is in the water. And yet, according to these testimonies, and according to other stories that franceinfo was able to collect from migrants living in a camp near Dunkirk, this practice by the police is far from exceptional.

In August 2023, off the coast of Berck-sur-Mer, a gendarme allegedly asked, via marine radio, a member of the National Sea Rescue Society (SNCM) to puncture the tubes of a migrant boat. “I was asked to burst the migrants’ zodiac, but I am here to save lives”, declared on the radio the sailor who refused to carry out this task. In March 2024, the newspaper The world revealed that a report was sent on this subject to the public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, by Rémi Vandeplanque, customs coast guard and representative of the Solidaires union. “An investigation is underway, but I have no further information”he laments to franceinfo.

Faced with these testimonies, the maritime prefecture and the regional prefecture refuse to comment on these specific cases. They simply indicate “that no instructions aiming to puncture boats at sea are given to the police”. Officially, the police can only intervene on land. For this, the system deployed on the Channel coasts is substantial. 800 police officers and gendarmes patrol daily, with drones, buggies and thermal cameras. Everything is partly financed by the United Kingdom: London promised, last year, the payment of 543 million euros to France over three years, to reduce the number of crossings.

Increased crossing times and risk-taking to avoid the police

Unfortunately, this impressive police force, between Calais and Dunkirk, pushes migrants to take more and more risks. “We see that this pushes people to go ever further, ever further southdeplores Axel from Utopia 56, we have departures from Boulogne, at 30 minutes from Calais by motorway, or from Le Touquet, an hour by motorway. We even have distress calls from the Bay of Somme now, so crossing times are increasing by two or three.”

And then in an attempt to escape the police who patrol the beaches, more and more migrants are launching themselves from the upstream canals to reach the sea. In the Aa canal, a police operation has just taken place. took place that night, at the Gravelines lock, three kilometers from the sea. Rénald, a resident, saw it all: “When I arrivedhe says, there were more than fifty migrants who had just thrown the boat over a small bridge. But unfortunately they had not gone 50 meters when the tube exploded and they all found themselves in the water. The police arrived to help them get back up.” Since the start of the year, 15 people have died trying to reach England, including three while taking a canal.