France threatens to arrest Britons who stop migrant crossings
Activists say their actions are necessary in the face of inaction from authorities
France is threatening to arrest British activists trying to stop migrants leaving French beaches on small boats bound for England.
Sources close to Laurent Nunez, the French interior minister, said he wanted to see the Britons arrested for possible obstruction and aggravated violence.
It follows a series of vigilante-style actions by Britons from the Raise the Colours movement, which encourages the widespread public display of flags bearing the Union Flag and St George’s Cross.
Police were called on Dec 5 when a Raise the Colours group was involved in trying to stop crossings.
There are ongoing tensions between the UK and France over the French delay in adopting more aggressive tactics at sea to prevent the migrants’ dinghies leaving for England.
According to government figures, 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the Channel – making last year the second highest annual small boat total on record. Some 65,000 migrants have reached the UK across the Channel since Labour came to power in July 2024.
Raise the Colours activists have published videos online of what they describe as “civilian border control” or “Operation Stop the Boats”.
The films show them wading into the sea, shouting at migrants and allegedly slashing small boats and their engines before they can be used for Channel crossings.
The group claims that they have been forced to take matters into their own hands because the French and British authorities are failing to take the tough action needed to stop the boats.
However, they now face arrest, with senior French politicians said to be furious at the unauthorised and potentially illegal actions.
A source close to Mr Nunez told La Voix du Nord that he “demanded that the members of these groups be able to be identified, arrested in case of action and that measures of obstruction be considered”.
According to the newspaper, the prefecture in the Calais region said it had responded to the Britons’ actions by taking “follow-up and coordination measures at different levels: local, zonal and national”. However, it did not specify the details for security reasons.
However, ministerial sources indicated that the French government was not satisfied that it was being effective in tackling the threat.
“We can’t see anything coming. There is a lack of action by the authorities, how is it that these people return so easily to the coast?” the source added.
The public prosecutor’s office of Boulogne indicated that prosecutions were being considered.
A source from the office said: “We also made reports in the sub-prefecture of Calais and Dunkirk. The presence of representatives of the British far-Right on the coast has already been reported to them.”
A Raise the Colours source said: “There’s an argument that the French should be putting more effort into actually stopping the migrant boats, rather than worrying about what other people are doing. I doubt this will stop the people who are trying to stop the crossings.”
At an Anglo-French summit in the UK last summer, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, pledged that elite police units would intervene at sea for the first time by intercepting the people smugglers’ dinghies as they approached the beaches to pick up migrants.
However, the new strategy, targeted at the taxi boats that travel up the coast from inland waterways, has yet to be implemented because of police union concerns at the risk to life from stopping small boats at sea.
This is despite a direct appeal from Sir Keir Starmer to Mr Macron in a letter leaked late last year in which the Prime Minister warned that without the new tactics, there was “no effective deterrent in the Channel”.
