Union opposes wider use of wading in to stop boats over fears police may drown

PROTEST HITS FRENCH PLAN TO ROLL OUT TOUGHER TACTICS

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member, I’m going to tell my colleagues not to go into the water. We can’t ask officers to risk their lives without protection.

“I don’t want a police officer to drown because we ask him to go into the water and stop migrants.

“I don’t think officers really want to go into the water to stop people.

“It’s not part of our duties. If we do it to save people, that’s different.”

The union’s claims sparked fury in the UK last night - but the Daily Express can reveal that French police may start intercepting migrants’ dinghies already in the sea “next week”.

Senior UK sources say operations are to be ramped up “imminently”, with ministers expecting their French counterparts will finally follow through on repeated promises.

A senior border source said the move was “aimed at stopping the taxi-boats that travel from inland canals out to the Channel, picking up migrants along the way”.

This follows pilot schemes, when French officers were seen wading into the shallows and slashing the inflatable craft with knives, forcing would-be migrants to head back on to the beaches.

Tony Smith, the former UK Border Force director general, said: “Maritime borders are renowned across the world as being the most difficult to control.

“The constant threat of loss of life by drowning demands a cautious approach under the law of the sea, which, reasonably, assumes that most people in unsafe vessels at sea will be seeking rescue.

“Not so, in the case of desperate migrants and the human smugglers who prey on them.

“They will do all they can to avoid being ‘rescued’ by the French police — even to the extent of scuppering the vessel or throwing people into the sea.”