France regulates small craft in its waters but fails to stop migrant boats
sir – In order to operate a boat over 6hp in French waters, a permit is required. This is all the justification needed for the French authorities to stop any but the smallest boats from proceeding to sea.
The French coastguard is responsible for enforcing maritime law, and for ensuring the safety of vessels. To escort boats halfway across the Channel is both to break the law and encourage lawbreaking.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is aware of this, I trust.
Peter Chennell
Wimborne, Dorset
sir – Why, as the French claim, is it more dangerous for Britain to send boats back to France from midchannel than for the French to send them on to Britain from the same point?
Colin Amies
Docking, Norfolk
sir – If the French are so concerned for the safety of the people attempting to cross the Channel illegally, why don’t they prevent them from leaving in the first place?
If these people genuinely seek asylum, what is wrong with France? Robin Cantellow
Ashbourne, Derbyshire
sir – On one day 1,000 migrants arrived from France. At that rate, a year will produce 365,000 and 10 years 3,650,000.
This has to stop.
Eddie Peart
Rotherham, South Yorkshire
sir – It is obvious from the hugely increasing number of migrants reaching our shores daily that the people-smuggling gangs are doing brisk business.
If the prospective immigrants know exactly where to find their booking offices, why do the French police not know of their locations, too? Or is it that they prefer to turn a blind eye? Neil O’brien
Old St Mellons, Monmouthshire sir – Considering how much we are paying the French to prevent such crossings, we are getting a spectacularly poor return for our money. Other than pointing them in the right direction what are the French doing?
Charles Penfold
Ulverston, Cumbria
sir – You report the French interior ministry (September 8) as saying that “there was never any question of making [the £54 million] conditional on quantified targets”. Why ever not? Charles Farrer
Faversham, Kent
sir – If the French police can’t monitor all their beaches, why not spend our earmarked £54 million on an Anglofrench security company to do it for them? They could patrol in 4x4s, with drones, and by high-speed boats, incentivised according to the number of economic migrants they stop.
Nick Rose
Selsey, West Sussex