Millions of euros for small canoes. This Monday, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced new equipment allocations to fight against illegal crossings of the Strait of Pas-de-Calais by migrants wishing to reach England. The budget for these acquisitions amounts to 11 million euros, while the number of crossings has never been greater.
It has been some time since migrants gave up clandestinely on ferries or Eurotunnel shuttles in an attempt to reach Great Britain. The port infrastructures and the Channel tunnel have been the subject of massive investments to make them impermeable to any passage outside the nails. Suddenly, the channels of smugglers now favor crossings using makeshift boats, canoes, kayaks and other semi-rigid. The results are random and the outcome is sometimes fatal. Since the beginning of the year, there have already been seven dead or missing. Over the same period, the services of the maritime prefecture counted 15,400 crossing attempts and 3,500 people rescued at sea. These figures are constantly increasing.
A 130 km strip to be secured day and night
And it is not for lack of having deployed men and equipment on the coast of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Consequence of the strengthening of coastal surveillance in this sector: migrants take to sea more and more in the South, from the Somme. It is therefore now a question of securing “day and night” a coastal strip of “more than 130 km, from Dunkirk to the Bay of Somme”, explains the Ministry of the Interior.
The British government had promised, last July, to release aid of 63 million euros over two years to partly finance the measures to combat illegal immigration on the French side. It is within the framework of this agreement that 11 million euros were used to buy more than 100 vehicles “such as quads, 4 × 4, Zodiac-type boats, vehicles equipped with sophisticated surveillance and detection means”. In addition to vehicles, the State has also acquired equipment for “night vision, thermal cameras, 160 tactical lighting projectors, means of interception and communication”. The endowment to the coastal security forces has started and will continue during the year 2022.