Migrants preparing to cross the English Channel attacked French police with projectiles as officers moved to stop a boat launching from a French beach, in footage that has intensified scrutiny of Britain’s £662m deal with France.
The extraordinary Home Office video shows life jacket-clad migrants hurling objects at officers in an attempt to keep them away from a large dinghy.
French police respond with pepper spray before pushing the group back. Officers then appear to slash the inflatable boat with a knife, bringing the attempted crossing to an abrupt end.
The footage comes as French authorities seek to demonstrate the impact of the new UK-France agreement, under which police have stepped up efforts to prevent migrant boats leaving French shores.
French police say they stopped 185 “small boat crossing events” in the three months since the deal was signed, accounting for about 61 per cent of attempted crossings.
The figure represents a 5 per cent increase on the same period last year, but is lower as a proportion of attempted crossings than in the three months immediately before the agreement was concluded.
At the same time, about 130 boats succeeded in evading French patrols, carrying 8,916 migrants to Britain.
Dramatic new footage: French police under attack on northern beach as they slash migrant dinghy to halt Channel launch
Migrants in life jackets hurl objects at French police racing in to stop their inflatable dinghy launching for Britain. Officers hit back with Pava spray, then… pic.twitter.com/XloSCukojz
— J Stewart (@triffic_stuff_) August 21, 2026
The French definition of a “crossing event” is broader than simply stopping a boat. It includes preventing launches, seizing equipment such as boats, engines and lifejackets, and arresting suspected smugglers.
Since the agreement was signed in April, additional police units have been deployed along the French coast, including a 50-strong riot-control unit.
The Home Office said operations have involved interceptions both on beaches and at sea.
But Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, questioned whether the dramatic footage represented a genuine change in French enforcement.
Mr Philp, who has visited beaches in northern France, told GB News that he had “seen with my own eyes and I’ve heard with my own ears that the French haven’t been doing anything”.
“The fact that this particular unit appeared to be slashing the boat is different. Maybe that is a change of policy. If it is, it’s welcome,” he said.
But he warned against drawing conclusions from a single intervention.
“We did see this happen a year ago, once, just before a summit between Sir Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron. They did it once,” he said.
“And now it may be that the adverse publicity generated by my visit a couple of weeks ago has prompted the French to take action in this one case.
“But I don’t think we can take too much comfort until we see this happening not just once, but day in, day out, week in, week out, on a routine basis.”
The confrontation comes as people-smuggling gangs appear to be adapting to increased French enforcement by putting ever larger numbers of migrants on individual boats.
Earlier this month, a record 230 people crossed the Channel in a single vessel — a so-called mega-dinghy carrying more passengers than a Boeing 737.
Jean-Marc Lamblin, director of SNSM, France’s equivalent of the RNLI, said rescue teams had seen a growing number of vessels measuring about 15 metres long.
“For the past three months, we’ve been seeing more and more 15-metre boats,” he said.
“We recently passed the record of 150. We didn’t think there could be more, but there really seems to be no limit anymore.”
The escalation has fuelled demands for a more aggressive British response.
Reform UK has proposed deploying the Royal Navy to intercept migrant boats and return passengers to France or Belgium, describing the policy as the biggest military mobilisation in the Channel since the end of the Second World War.
Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesman, has said nobody would be able to reach British shores by small boat under the plan.
French authorities have rejected the proposal, arguing that it would breach French sovereignty as well as maritime and international law.
The Labour government, meanwhile, insists the bilateral deal is already disrupting the smuggling trade.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Our new UK-France deal is already having a real impact, stopping crossings before they happen and disrupting the criminal gangs behind them.
“People smugglers should be in no doubt, we’re taking down their operations, seizing their equipment and breaking their business model for good.”
She added that joint British-French efforts had stopped more than 47,000 small boat crossing attempts since Labour came to power.
But the latest footage underlines the increasingly confrontational nature of the Channel crisis — and the political difficulty facing ministers as the gangs respond to enforcement with ever larger and more crowded vessels.
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