France will start stopping small boats in Channel after UK pressure
France has agreed to begin intercepting small boats in the Channel, following months of insistence from the UK.
The change in policy follows the Prime Minister wrote to the President urging him to back the initiative and saying there presently "lack any effective preventive measure" in the maritime passage.
French maritime police will be allowed to intercept the small boats at sea, but only before they've picked up their migrants, according to authoritative confirmation.
French police have rarely acted to stop the heavily loaded boats departing from the coastline because it is viewed as excessively high a danger to both personnel and civilians.
"It is essential that we implement these tactics this month... We have zero effective deterrent in the Channel."
Currently, a French naval police spokesperson states officers will begin intervening at sea, with the objective of protecting lives.
Notably, the official ruled out the use of nets to intercept boats, which had previously been reported as a potential technique to disable the engines of the boats.
This determination to take action at all is a major advancement, following a brief change towards a stricter strategy this summer, which dropped off when the previous government official departed from government.
This was demonstrated in July, in the run-up to a meeting between the UK leader and French president, when French police were observed wading into the sea to slash the hulls of a vessel.
Now French authorities will once more be allowed to stop boats before they pick up migrant individuals from the beaches of northern France, although it's uncertain how the vessels will be stopped.
Powerful gusts are currently delaying the start of intervention operations and the human trafficking networks will be looking for ways to adjust to evade detection, as they have frequently done in the previous instances.
UK immigration authorities and Downing Street have been approached for response.
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