Look, we ARE patrolling beaches, claim French
THROUGH the grey of early-morning twilight, a dozen dark figures could be seen on the beach. Occasionally they ventured into the rolling dunes, and powerful torches lit up the darkness.
As dawn broke yesterday, it became clear that these were French police officers – and that, belatedly, at least some of the northern coast was being closely monitored for migrants leaving for Britain.
In the week when unauthorised seaborne arrivals in Kent from France topped 1,000 in a day, and Home Secretary Priti Patel threatened to cut funding for French policing of the Channel, the authorities there were finally sparked into action.
It was clearly designed to show people smugglers, and the public, that the French police mean business. By all accounts it is too late – and impossible to sustain. The Daily Mail saw as many as ten police vehicles in the beach car parks between the resorts of Wimereux and Ambleteuse, 20 miles southwest of Calais.
Most of the police, all with handguns, positioned themselves around the remains of a concrete gun emplacement built by the Nazis in a vain bid to stop the British. When the Allied invasion finally came, in 1944, we chose another beach.
People smugglers going the other way yesterday were doing something similar.
The police trained their binoculars on the dunes, where migrants have been inflating dinghies before dashing down to the waves. As the sun rose, a 20ft rigid inflatable boat was clear to see.
A group of migrants had made it to the beach, and been disturbed. The police had slashed it, and left it there as a warning.