In a disturbing video circulating online, French riot police can be seen physically clashing with a man and a young boy, believed to be his son, as they try to board a small boat headed for the UK from a beach near Gravelines in northern France.
The officers, clad in full riot gear, use tear gas and batons in an apparent attempt to prevent the pair from making the Channel crossing. The video has not been independently verified.
Highlights
- A viral video shows French riot police using tear gas and batons against a father and son trying to board a UK-bound boat near Gravelines.
- UK and France's new “one in, one out” migrant deal allows one legal UK asylum seeker for each person returned to France after illegal Channel crossing.
- Charities warn the UK-France agreement treats migrants as commodities and fails to address the root causes forcing dangerous migration.
- Violent smuggling gangs control many Channel crossings, exploiting migrants with abuse, forced labor, and human trafficking.
It comes after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood alongside French President Emmanuel Macron to announce a new “one in, one out” migrant deal.
French riot police physically stopped a small boat after the new "one in, one out" deal with the UK
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For each person returned to France after crossing the Channel illegally, one asylum seeker will be granted a legal pathway into the UK.
The plan, Starmer said, would “turn the tables” on smuggling gangs.
Charities that work alongside migrants have warned that the agreement appears to be a transactional policy that treats migrants as commodities.
“The new ‘one in, one out’ deal reduces people seeking safety to commodities to be exchanged,” Fizza Qureshi of the Migrants’ Rights Network told The Independent. “The UK-France agreement does nothing to address the role of both states in displacing people and forcing them to make these dangerous journeys in the first place.”
Post Brexit, the UK is no longer part of the EU’s Dublin Regulation, which allowed EU countries to return asylum seekers to the first country of entry. They are, hence, dependent on cooperation from France to send the migrants back.
As of August 6, the UK-France treaty is operational, allowing the UK to detain migrants as soon as they arrive and return them to France.
The video from Gravelines was filmed just before dawn, when smugglers often launch boats to avoid detection.
It was not an isolated incident. Reports confirm that police slashed another boat last month in France, and authorities have been granted new powers to intercept vessels within 300 meters of the French shore.
Until now, it was prohibited to intercept these vessels unless lives were in immediate danger — despite the British government’s repeated pressure on France to stop the boats at sea.
In 2024, the UK announced that it would allocate nearly £500 million to France over three years to prevent boats from leaving its shores.
An investigation by Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde, The Observer, and Der Spiegel uncovered that French police have conducted so-called “pullbacks” in the Channel.
A French customs coast guard told Lighthouse Reports, “[The pullback] reminds me of the Greek and Turkish coast guards. And that’s shameful for the French. If the police continue to use such tactics, there is likely to be a death at some point.”
At least one of these high-risk maneuvers was reportedly carried out using a patrol boat funded by the British government.
Over the past two years, drownings in the waters off northern France, where most of these operations have occurred, have also sharply increased.
Charities say the policy has turned migrants into commodities to be exchanged
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Flora Alexander, director of the International Rescue Committee UK, said tougher enforcement is resulting in escalating danger: “Prioritising tougher enforcement without creating safe, legal routes is both dangerous and ineffective. Evidence shows that these policies don’t stop people from seeking safety – they simply force them into more perilous journeys, putting lives at risk.”
Migrants have tried to reach the UK from northern France for decades to claim asylum in Britain. The first half of 2025 witnessed a record high in small boats arriving in the UK, with nearly 20,000 people crossing the Channel.
In 2022, Conservative MP Suella Braverman called immigrants travelling in small boats an “invasion.” This sentiment has only gotten stronger over the years.
Nigel Farage, UK Reform leader, has been one of the most vocal anti-immigration campaigners and has blamed the EU for increased immigration to the UK.
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Last month, he called for the UK to refuse to accept “undocumented males” arriving in small boats as part of any deal with Macron.
Recently, several charities have accused Farage of spreading “unevidenced fears” over asylum seekers who illegally enter the UK on small boats. He has claimed that migrants travel to the UK to be “looked after”, get free healthcare, and receive £49-a-week “pocket money.”
“While they are at it, they probably work illegally either in delivery services or drugs or whatever it may be,” he added.
Comments such as Farage’s fuel right-wing rhetoric that migrants are a danger to society. But small boats' arrivals account for only about one-third of the total asylum requests in the UK, according to the UK government.
Small boat arrivals account for only a third of the total asylum requests in the UK
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A reliance on irregular migration routes, which are increasingly exploited by organized criminal networks preying on migrants’ desperation and lack of legal options, has deepened the immigration crisis.
According to Europol and Frontex, many organized gangs running illegal crossing operations are also involved in human trafficking operations along the same routes.
A recent BBC undercover investigation exposed the deadly risks associated with crossing the English Channel in small boats operated by smuggling gangs. These gangs frequently change their name and phone numbers to stay ahead of law enforcement.
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Testimonies from migrants and secret footage filmed by an undercover journalist revealed violent behavior from gang members, including beating migrants, intimidating them with guns, and using physical abuse to control them.
In 2024, one such gang was busted on the English Channel with Vietnamese immigrants who were either subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation, or were used as drug mules, in return for a reduced smuggling fee.
In the Western Balkans, some migrant smuggling networks are believed to be among the most violent in Europe. Networks on the English Channel route have often resorted to violence against competitors.
The BBC’s reporting shows that many migrants don’t qualify for support in France, and smugglers promote the impression that the UK is a better place to live in a bid to sell Channel crossings.
Immigration through small boats leaves migrants at the mercy of criminal gangs and human traffickers
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The recent video of French police clashing with migrants is not an isolated display of anti-migrant hostility.
There has been growing anti-immigrant rhetoric across the UK and Ireland, fueled by fear-mongering anti-immigration narratives that have obscured the difference between legal and illegal immigration for some.
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In recent weeks, the British Isles and Ireland have seen a chilling rise in racial violence.
In Tallaght, Dublin, a 40-year-old Indian man was ambushed by a gang who stripped him, beat him, and falsely accused him of targeting children.
In Waterford, Ireland, six-year-old Nia Naveen was punched in the face and private parts by local boys aged 12 to 14 who told her to “go back to India.”
Further north, in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, anti-immigrant riots erupted after two Romanian teenagers were accused of sexual assault.
Misinformation about asylum seekers led to petrol bombs, fires, and coordinated attacks on migrants and police alike.
There has been an increase in violence against legal migrants in the British Isles and Ireland
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On the third night of violence, masked youths torched a leisure centre where migrant families had sought shelter. Women and children had to be evacuated through fire exits as crowds shouted threats and hurled rocks.
The immigration crisis is a complex situation, and anti-immigration notions are increasing in countries around the globe. But policies are failing to address the root causes and are pushing migrants into dangerous avenues.