French beach patrols cut during peak summer months as officers are redeployed to the south of the country to deal with tourist season
French beach patrols are left depleted during peak summer months as officers are redeployed to the south of the country to deal with tourist season, it has been claimed.
A former Home Office official told The Mail on Sunday it was believed that the French would retain a 'nominal number' on the north coast to stop channel crossings, but would divert resources elsewhere to cope with an influx of tourists flocking to enjoy the sunshine.
This would leave patrols in the north at their weakest just as smugglers were ramping up operations to take advantage of calmer seas. It comes as one gendarme told this newspaper there were already 'not enough' police to stop the crossings.
Such complaints are unlikely to go down well in Westminster, after the UK struck a deal with the French in 2023 to provide £480 million over three years to tackle the problem.
The money was supposed to double the number of personnel deployed on beach patrols, while providing for a new, highly trained, permanent French mobile policing unit, additional drones, aircraft and other surveillance technology.
But the Home Office source said it was thought some gendarmes 'get sent to tourist hotspots during the summer', in a move indicative of French priorities.
The source also said this was the case for 'big events in Paris' that required heavy policing.
The day with the most migrants crossing the Channel this year was May 31, when 1,194 made the trip. That coincided with the Champions League Final, an event that drew a large police operation in Paris due to Paris Saint-Germain's participation.
France's PAF frontier police have previously conceded that beach patrols are scaled back during the summer as gendarmes take advantage of generous holiday allowance. UK Border Force sources have warned that people traffickers are aware of these holiday patterns and plotted to 'take advantage'.
La Prefecture du Nord – the authority responsible for governing the region around Calais and Dunkirk – declined to comment on the claims.
It also rebuffed a request for data showing the monthly patrol numbers.
The 2023 deal was also supposed to help fund a new detention centre on the outskirts of Dunkirk. But construction has been delayed until November this year, due to problems with planning approval.
When the MoS visited the site on an industrial estate believed to have been chosen for the 140-capacity centre, it found an empty area of grassland that had been cordoned off with rocks.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
4 hours ago
- Times
Off with her diamonds! A revolutionary jewel reappears
This month's iteration of Christie's Magnificent Jewels auction is really living up to its name. One of the star lots is a 10.38-carat, kite-shaped pink diamond once owned by the daughter of Marie Antoinette (and, quite possibly by the legendary, ill-fated French queen herself). It has been reimagined by one of the most exclusive — and elusive — contemporary jewellers, JAR, into a ring made from blackened platinum, entirely studded with round diamonds and topped with a regal fleur-de-lis composed of 17 diamonds. Auctioned in Geneva in 1996 by a seller known only as a member of a European royal family, the jewel has spent the subsequent decades hidden from public view. Until now. • Read more luxury reviews, advice and insights from our experts Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France before the Revolution that would cost her her head, and the wife of Louis XVI, is known to posterity for her extravagance and love of the finer things in life. One such passion was jewels. The young queen had an exceptional eye and good taste, often commissioning her own, new items. As well as a personal indulgence, Marie Antoinette's jewels signposted her status and taste to the world. In 1791, as revolutionary forces closed in, Marie Antoinette, her husband the king, and their children fled Paris in disguise, hoping to reach loyalist troops. Escaping under cover of night, their elaborate carriage moved slowly, delayed by poor planning and curious townsfolk. Recognised by a postmaster in Sainte-Menehould, their identities were confirmed in Varennes. The town mobilised to block their path, cutting down a bridge and detaining them. The royal family's failed escape shattered remaining illusions of monarchy, deepening France's revolutionary crisis. Brought back to Paris under guard, their credibility was irreparably damaged, accelerating the move toward republicanism and the king's eventual execution. One of the three children with them on that fateful flight was Marie-Thérèse, the Madame Royale, their eldest child and the only one of the family to survive the fall of the monarchy. She was entrusted with Marie Antoinette's remaining jewels. Whether the pink diamond was among them is a matter of some debate — and there is no concrete evidence to support the theory. What is known is that Marie-Thérèse passed them down to Duchess Marie-Thérèse de Chambord. From there, they remained in the family. The pink diamond makes its first appearance in a will, noting it is owned by Queen Maria Theresa of Bavaria (1849-1919), the last queen of Bavaria, as 'a pink solitaire diamond from Aunt Chambord'. The diamond remained in the family for generations, until that unnamed European royal sold it in 1996. The identity of the 1996 buyer is just as mysterious as the seller — but we know that they asked the ultra-exclusive, private-commission-only jeweller JAR (Joel Arthur Rosenthal), who was one of Elizabeth Taylor's favourites, to create a ring that's part rock and roll, part regal elegance. 'It has everything you could want in a piece of jewellery,' says Rahul Kadakia, the head of jewellery at Christie's International. 'The stone — likely from the prized Indian region of Golconda — has several shades of soft colours, flashing purple and pink from different angles. And it's been transformed into a masterpiece by JAR, all while carrying the splendour of royal provenance.' If, for some reason, the pink diamond isn't your thing, the auction has several other mouthwatering lots, including the Blue Belle necklace that features one of the rarest sapphires in the world, a 392.52-carat stone, set amid a profusion of oval-shaped diamonds, or a Mughal carved emerald necklace that is associated with Nader Shah (1739), the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran who acquired the Koh-i-Noor diamond in 1739.
The Sun
9 hours ago
- The Sun
Tactic people smugglers use to get young male migrants past French cops onto dinghies to UK revealed
PEOPLE smugglers are using women and children as human shields in a diversion tactic to get past French police - before mostly men make it onto a dinghy. Families with young babies and kids were put at the front of the queue of migrants entering the vast beach from the sand dunes in Gravelines, near Calais, yesterday with young men trailing behind. 1 The diversionary tactics meant the 40 police officers, armed and waiting with pepper spray and tear gas, remained calm and did not use force against the group straight away to avoid injuring the children. Instead, officers kettled the group and successfully marched them off back into the sand dunes. But, when the time was right and the police thought they had taken the group off the beach, a group of mostly men suddenly sprinted off into the sand dunes before making a break for it back onto the beach. Most of the migrants with children did not return to the beach. It comes after senior Labour minister Darren Jones was slammed after suggesting on BBC's Question Time that the majority of migrants entering by small boats that he had seen were women and children. A dramatic cat and mouse game followed yesterday with tear gas being fired over Gravelines beach in an attempt to keep migrants away from the sea. But they failed to stop a nearby dinghy from picking up the migrants and it left for British shores with mostly men on board. It comes after official figures showed that more than 919 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Friday on 14 dinghies - averaging around 66 people per boat. It has taken the provisional annual total to 16,183, which is 42 per cent higher than the same point last year and 79 per cent up on the same date in 2023. The highest daily number so far this year was 1,195 on May 31.
Reuters
10 hours ago
- Reuters
Macron visits Greenland to signal European resolve after Trump annexation threats
PARIS, June 15 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Greenland on Sunday, in a show of solidarity with Denmark meant to send a signal of European resolve after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to take over the island. Greenland is a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark with the right to declare independence. Both the Greenland and Danish governments say it is not for sale and only Greenlanders can determine their future. President Donald Trump has said he wants the United States to take over the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island, and has not ruled out force. His vice president, JD Vance, visited a U.S. military base there in March. Macron, the first foreign leader to visit Greenland since Trump's explicit threats to "get" the island, was invited by the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark. He has said his visit is meant to prevent any "preying" on the territory. "France has stood by us since the first statements about taking our land emerged. This support is both necessary and gratifying," Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen wrote on Facebook days ahead of Macron's visit. Asked if Macron would deliver an explicit message to the United States during his visit, an adviser to Macron told reporters: "The trip is a signal in itself," without mentioning Trump. According to an IFOP poll for published on Saturday, 77% of the French and 56% of Americans disapprove of an annexation of Greenland by the U.S. And 43% of the French would approve using French military power to prevent a U.S. invasion. Macron will visit the capital Nuuk, as well as a hydropower station funded by the EU and a glacier, and discuss Arctic security and climate change with his hosts. Though Denmark is an EU member, Greenland is outside the bloc. The French adviser said the visit will be an opportunity to discuss how to give Greenland's association partnership with the EU a "new dimension". Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen made several visits to Paris after Trump's threats to seek French and European backing, and has placed orders for French-made surface-to-air missiles, in a shift of focus for Copenhagen. Enlisting the EU's only nuclear power is a way for Denmark, long one of Washington's most loyal allies in Europe, to project a form of hard power towards a suddenly more aggressive United States, Florian Vidal of the Paris-based IFRI think-tank said. "The Trump administration's more aggressive posture is a shock that makes the French vision of Europe, one that is more autonomous, appear more reasonable for Denmark," he said. "From a Nordic point of view, France is a military power that counts."
