A right-wing account portrays France’s new small-boats deployment as constrained at the decisive moment, while UK officials present the wider cross-Channel enforcement effort as producing results.

The dispute centres on whether officers stationed on Normandy beaches can do enough from shore as larger dinghies and changing launch locations challenge existing enforcement.

The report says the 45-person French police “surge team” has been sent to address small-boat crossings but will not normally be authorised to enter the sea. Officers could go into the water only where there is an immediate threat to life, it says, a restriction critics argue could limit intervention as migrants wade out to boats offshore.¹

That concern is linked to what the article describes as a shift by smugglers towards larger inflatable boats, capable of carrying hundreds of people and launched from beaches farther south than the traditional Calais and Dunkirk areas. A French commanding officer previously told The Times that teams “can’t” stop people once they are in the water because “it’s too dangerous,” adding that those attempting the crossing are often desperate.¹

British officials, by contrast, stress the broader enforcement partnership rather than the limits on this particular unit. A Downing Street spokesperson said UK-France cooperation was “clearly working” and that operational teams were making progress in reducing crossings, while calling for the approach to be expanded across Europe.¹

The Home Office similarly cited French beach operations, saying joint action had prevented more than 48,000 crossing attempts since the 2024 election and that more than 1,100 boats and engines had been seized by the National Crime Agency and international partners.¹

The contrasting accounts leave a practical question: whether gains claimed through wider cooperation can be sustained if officers cannot intervene once a boat is beyond the shoreline.