A growing political crisis in Paris is threatening to jeopardise plans for French police to intercept migrant boats at sea, it has emerged.
Under current rules, French authorities are prevented from tackling a migrant boat once it has entered the water, unless a vessel is in distress.
But, in what was hailed as a breakthrough in stopping migrant ‘taxi boats’ in the Channel, the French cabinet agreed in June to change the interpretation of maritime law.
This would enable French police and coastguard vessels to intercept dinghies up to 300 metres from the shoreline.
Yet, according to The Times, the looming collapse of the French government has thrown those plans into doubt.
Francois Bayrou, the French Prime Minister, on Monday announced he would hold a vote of confidence in his minority administration on 8 September as he struggles to win support for his plans to tackle the country’s budget deficit.
It was branded a ‘suicidal’ move by one of his own MPs, with it widely expected Mr Bayrou’s government will fall next month.
French government sources told the newspaper the maritime law change is unlikely to be passed soon and would be low down the list of priorities for any new government.
But Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds this morning insisted the UK Government had received ‘reassurance’ from the French interior ministry that the law change would go ahead.
He told Times Radio: ‘I’m not going to comment on France’s internal politics.
‘But I know colleagues at the Home Office have already set out that they’ve had reassurance from the French interior ministry that this change in maritime law will go ahead.’
Asked if this would be the case even if the French government collapses, Mr Thomas-Symonds added: ‘We’ve had that reassurance it will go ahead.
‘And it is important, because what that particular change is talking about is the ability for French police to intercept the boats within 300 metres of the shore in shallow water. That was not the case before.’
The political crisis in Paris is adding to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s woes as he struggles to fulfil his pledge to ‘smash’ the people-smuggling gangs operating in the Channel.
A record 28,947 people have crossed the Channel in small boats this year, after 659 migrants did so on Monday in nine boats.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage yesterday unveiled plans to deport up to 600,000 asylum seekers within five years if he wins power at the next general election.
Mr Farage described his party’s ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ as a five-year emergency programme to detain and deport illegal migrants and deter future arrivals.
Downing Street criticised Mr Farage’s plans as ‘old gimmicks’, while emphasising Sir Keir’s grasp of the public’s ‘strength of feeling’ on the issue of small boat crossings.
