"In any case, they will leave": on a speedboat along the Opal Coast, gendarmes scan land and sea in search of migrants.

With the certainty that those prevented from leaving or rescued at sea will repeat the dangerous crossing to England.

This Thursday in August at dawn, four gendarmes embark on the Eulimène, star of the nautical brigade of the national gendarmerie of Calais, in the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Surveillance and rescue mission

For the past year, these “land” gendarmes have been carrying out surveillance, intelligence and rescue missions in the 300-meter strip along the Opal Coast.

Faced with the locking of access to ferries and the Eurotunnel, attempts to cross on frail boats intensified this summer, after having taken off from the end of 2018.

According to the British Home Office, Thursday marked a new record, with 592 migrants rescued or intercepted on the English side, bringing the number of those who reached England in 2021 to 11,000, according to the agency's count. press release PA.

"It starts everywhere this morning", notes Captain Laurent Martin de Morestel, second in command of the company.

The sea is calm, suitable for crossing the Strait of Pas-de-Calais.

At its narrowest point, the Cliffs of Dover are only 28 km away.

"Distress"

The captain's cell phone rings.

On Hardelot beach, gendarmes have just prevented 56 migrants, including children, from boarding a 12 m barge.

"We saw people with paddles, inflatable swimming pools, who rowed with shovels, brooms," reports the captain, while the boat runs along the coast at low speed.

"On land, we fight against illegal immigration, but as soon as there is a centimeter of water, we do not do more," he explains.

"None of our administrations at sea does fight against illegal immigration, only rescue", confirms the maritime prefecture.

Violent currents, intense maritime traffic, overloaded boats, under-motorized… the danger is real.

Thursday morning, a young African man was killed in the sinking of his canoe, off Dunkirk.

The average price of the crossing is between 2,000 to 3,000 euros, according to the gendarmes and the Regional Operational Center for Surveillance and Rescue (CROSS) Gris-Nez.

“Seeing people's distress is still complicated.

For them, it is difficult to get on our boat to return ”to the French side, confides Brigadier Simon D'Hont.

"Nobody has the solution"

"As long as the danger is not proven, we accompany them to avoid the accident and when we arrive in British waters, the British rescue services take care of them", summarizes the captain.

In any case, "they will leave", "no one has the solution".

The British authorities have just raised the tone, the Secretary of State for Immigration calling the number of crossings "totally unacceptable".

The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, recently spoke of Frontex involvement.

The United Kingdom, which pledged at the end of July to pay 62.7 million euros in 2021-2022 to strengthen French law enforcement on the coasts, is funding two new boats for the nautical brigade, expected in October .

“We have 80 km of continuous coastlines (…) so I don't see how we could prevent” the passages, points out the activist Loan Torondel, author of a report on the Channel crossings.

He is “sorry to see tens of millions of euros spent on this strategy to the detriment of the search for alternatives”.

According to François Guennoc of the Auberge des Migrants association, 60 to 70% of migrant crossings attempts succeed, one in two boats according to CROSS.

Even monitored 24 hours a day by "a gendarme every 2km at least", the coastline is "difficult to keep", recognizes the captain, who tries from the sea "to anticipate the blow on which the networks of smugglers will position themselves" .

Smugglers who are also constantly adapting: they have thus exchanged the concealment of the canoes in the dunes for the "drop-off" of boats and migrants directly on the shore.

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  • Immigration

  • Illegal immigration

  • Calais

  • Society

  • Lille

  • Gendarmerie