WIMEREUX, France (AP) – Just a day after 12 migrants died when their small inflatable ripped apart on a failed effort to cross the English Channel, several dozen others were making another crossing attempt on a crowded vessel from the coast of northern France on Wednesday, monitored by French patrol boats that watched as the flimsy boat labored through the seas.
That migrants were prepared to risk their lives on the crossing so soon after a dozen others lost theirs underscored the magnitude of the migration problem for the French and U.K. governments.
The mayor of Wimereux, a French coastal town where Associated Press journalists filmed the inflatable boat laden with people on Wednesday morning, pleaded for French and British officials to do more to stem the number of migrants attempting the journey.
“Unfortunately, every day is like this for us. The smugglers – a criminal network – continue with insistence to send people to their deaths in the channel. It really is unacceptable, scandalous. And it is high time that a lasting solution is found with Britain,” mayor Jean-Luc Dubaële said by phone.
“Let’s ask ourselves the question: Why do they want to go to Britain? Because something is drawing them there,” he said. “They can ask for asylum in France. (But) none ask for the right to asylum in France. They all want to go to Britain. So it is high time that we sit around a table with the new British government. The British government is ready to discuss all this. So let’s take advantage of that.”
The pressing issue of cross-Channel migration was a key focus in the U.K. general election in July, which the Labour Party won resoundingly to make its leader, Keir Starmer, the new prime minister.
The French maritime agency that oversees that stretch of the busy waterway between France and Britain confirmed to the AP that the inflatable on Wednesday was carrying migrants. AP journalists estimated that 40 to 50 people were aboard.
The maritime agency said French boats were monitoring the inflatable, in case it ran into difficulty or the people aboard requested assistance. The agency said the French coastal patrol vessel Armoise was involved in that operation, accompanied by its own smaller boat that it carries with it.
The inflatable was so crowded that some of those aboard, crammed side-by-side on the air-filled tubes, had their legs dangling over the sides.
Many wore wore orange life preservers. A small patrol boat flying a French flag approached the inflatable at one point and a crew aboard tossed more orange life vests – about half a dozen of them – to the migrants, who caught them.
The gray seas of the English Channel were comparatively calm, with small waves lapping against the beach from where AP’s team filmed, as people strolled and walked dogs on the sands.
Still, the inflatable appeared to make only slow headway. Even though AP’s journalists filmed it for more than two hours, it remained clearly visible from shore, with the smaller French patrol vessel buzzing around it and the larger one shadowing it from farther away.
In a statement to the AP, the French maritime agency said that although maritime law forbids the use at sea of makeshift inflatables, it’s too dangerous to force them back to shore since the boat is so heavily crammed.
“It’s difficult to achieve with more than 50 people on board who are vehemently refusing to be rescued. The main risk is a stampede on board and then a capsizing, these boats being neither stable nor reliable. The risk of loss of human life being too high for an intervention under duress, the choice is made to prioritize the protection of the people on board and by simply monitoring from a distance the navigation capabilities of these boats,” the statement said.
“It is therefore more a question of ethics than of blind application of the law,” it added.
By the U.K. government’s count, at least 21,720 migrants have managed to cross the English Channel so far this year. That’s 3% more than at the same stage last year, but 19% lower than during the same period in 2022.
The boat that ripped apart off the French coast on Tuesday, plunging 65 people into the sea, was one of several crossing attempts that day. British authorities said at least 317 migrants succeeded, arriving aboard five boats.
One of the first measures the new U.K. government immediately enacted was to scrap the previous Conservative government´s plan to send some migrants arriving in small boats to Rwanda rather than being allowed to seek asylum in Britain.
Starmer said the plan was a “gimmick” and wouldn’t act as a deterrent. Instead, his government has opted to divert some of the money saved from ditching the program into setting up a beefed-up border force to “smash” the criminal gangs behind the small-boat arrivals.
