French police slash small taxi-boat on beach

[DangerQuakeRhinoSnake]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ygjjxjlplo

I'm unsure why the BBC has put an upsetting scenes warning on the video. Nobody got hurt, they are just disappointed. I think this is far preferable than those people going across the sea and potentially dying in the water. The police wouldn't have done it if it wasn't shallow enough to safely stop the boat. I think they are very brave.

I wonder what the French will do with the people though, if they are now serious about stopping boats.

Pushbacks at Sea: Legal Overview (France & International Law)

1. What is a Pushback?

• Forcible prevention of asylum seekers from entering a country, typically by intercepting vessels

before they reach shore.

• Can involve returning boats, denying disembarkation, or escorting them back to departure points.

1. International Legal Framework

A. 1951 Refugee Convention

• Right to seek asylum.
• Non-refoulement: No return to danger without assessing claims.

B. UNCLOS (Law of the Sea)

• States must rescue persons in distress.
• Limited authority to interfere with vessels not in distress beyond territorial waters (12 nm).

C. European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

• Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy (2012): Pushbacks without screening violate Article 3 (inhuman treatment),

Protocol 4 (collective expulsion), and Article 13 (right to remedy).

1. France's Approach

• France does not conduct full maritime pushbacks.
• Prevents departures from land or shallow water.
• July 2025 plan: Allows limited interceptions up to 300m offshore (still legally grey).

1. EU Law: Dublin III- Requires assessment of protection claims before transferring responsibility to another EU country.

• Cannot reject boats at sea based on EU responsibility alone.

1. NGO & Human Rights Concerns

• Pushbacks may deny access to asylum procedures.
• Risk of violating non-refoulement and creating legal grey zones.

1. Summary Table

| Action | Legal Status | |---------|-------| | Denying asylum after landing | Illegal No | | Intercepting boats in distress | Legal Yes | | Returning boats without screening | Illegal No | | Preventing beach departures | Legal Yes | | Stopping boats 300m from shore (planned) | Legally grey Warning | | Towing boats to another country | Illegal No |

Wonder what happens if it’s a legal grey zone

Just legally I don’t see the point of this clashing system. On one hand can’t touch convention, the other using force to stop it.

ilike the inflatable boats appear to be coming from Germany.

https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/nca-and-bpol-target-channel-small-boat-suppliers

Who filmed it? Lucky they were there to catch it on camera…

The French have been doing this for ages. This isn’t new 🙄

No the UK Border Force can’t intervene when they’re on French soil.
The best solution would be to intercept and push back to France rather than collect and taxi to the UK but the thinking is the migrants would fight back and risk those on board and that would then leave BF/RNLI responsible.
There have been cases where the boards capsize and the rescue taxi service doesn’t work and people die and BF has to defend itself in court. We’ve made the taxi service the expectation now. Even though there are dozens of boats a day and the taxi and processing and accommodation services are overwhelming BF.
Nobody likes any of the solutions. It’s why we ended up with the Rwanda proposal.

The RNLI are volunteers who's remit is to save lives.

Taking an overloaded lifeboat on a trip to France would keep them away from their job for hours.

We should have very expensive working holiday visas, costing at least £3K to allow economic migrants to work for a year or two and send money home.

The UK could monitor those migrants, dictate when, where and what work they can do.

That way you cut out the people traffickers.

I know the RNLI have lost funding due to saving the immigrants, which is bloody horrible. Such an important service for everyone.

Yes good point

Someone coming from Somalia will have crossed through Spain and France as a minimum, so trying to enter the UK illegally is unnecessary.

Where do they even buy these boats? With the huge numbers crossing there must be a vendor somewhere in France that is starting to get a bit suspicious.

That’s not correct. The reason why ‘taxi boats’ succeeded was that legally French police could only stop boats that were on land. So the smugglers stopped launching boats from the beaches and started the taxi boats. These boats were launched from isolated places, sometimes miles away from where the people were waiting, who then had to wade out into shallow waters to get into the boats. Now the law has changed there and the police are allowed to stop boats that are in shallow water. More of this will happen.

Or people will swim to the boat

Anywhere along the Channel coast - England, Isle of Wight, France, Belgium, Netherlands and so on.

It happens everyday pretty much, not much of a wait I’d have thought. Certainly at this time of year.

Yes - I listened to a podcast about people in Calais attempting to get on these boats. One woman being interviewed said she had tried over 10 times but as they had to swim / wade out, it was usually the stronger people, ie young men, who got to the boats the quickest.

No they haven’t, or at least nothing significant.

www.reuters.com/fact-check/claim-about-falling-donations-british-charity-misses-key-context-2024-10-14/

I support the French stopping the boats - this should be done daily and supported by the UK if needed. The passage of people illegally is unsustainable, education, healthcare, benefits etc is all broken. We cannot support thousands of people coming in and not contributing

Yes I think we’ll see more boats with stronger people, maybe the men

"legitimate application routes for access to the UK"

Well you can book easy-jet or there's a ferry and when you arrive as a tourist you are breaking no laws unless you overstay so you can then apply for asylum.

Doesn't seem so difficult to me.

The reason no one does this is that you have had to show your passport and it will be clear where you came from and that you are not really a refugee.

It's often said they have the right to enter illegally but this is not true. The 1951 Refugee Convention does allow for entering first and then surrendering to authorities, but only if fleeing immediate danger.

They were perfectly safe in any of the countries they passed on the way so that doesn't work.

You have the same right to enter someone else's country that you do to enter someone else's house and the normal response to finding someone climbing in your window isn't to offer them money and a hotel room.

As far as I have read, the boat had motor issues preventing it pulling out. It was also floundering in the shallow water and appeared unstable and likely to tip. There were also concerns around a child being crushed by the movement and number of people at one end trying to fix the motor.

This collectively led a gendarme to decide there was a risk to life by letting the barely working, floundering, overfilled board sail, so they slashed it as still in waist height water.

The French government are extremely clear that their police should never enter the water unless there is an immediate risk to life. This time, those coppers felt they'd reached that threshold. Their statements on this particular boat sinking have fully backed up the view that police should only do this in rare circumstances, shallow water and direct risk to life.

I am glad this unsafe boat was stopped and all children rescued before they were killed in their broken boat.

Such great guys, only wanting to send money home for the women and children……

Thanks for info, makes more sense

Someone from Iran or similar cannot easily arrive here as a tourist. They also need tourist visas. Your point is just not true. The vast majority of asylum seekers and economic migrants from the ME and Africa will have to illegally cross borders to come anywhere in Europe . I don’t think the convention covers this point at all.

Most people coming to the UK are from Iran and Afghanistan. So very likely to be asylum seekers.

The UK government has agreed this, in fact they have been working with the French to promote this. There was an interview with Yvette Cooper the other day when she explained that.