French police slash inflatable migrant boat heading to UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ygjjxjlplo

by SeaSaltSprayer

30 comments

  1. Wow, genius strategy, must have some top minds on it.

  2. An article in the times suggests this will be the norm from next month when the laws change but will wait to see.

  3. >The intervention was highly unusual.

    Just a photo op, really. But, ideally, this is what they should be doing all day, every day. No boats, no crossings. It isn’t rocket science.

  4. So it turns out that if there’s journalists on the beach the French police will be embarrassed into actually doing something

  5. Did they do it with a chainsaw in a violin case like the bloke in Supergrass?

  6. Just get a guy with a air soft gun and shoot these small boats so they deflate, I bet I cam hire a whole army of Airsoft hobbyist to do the job of the french police

  8. Excuse my scepticism but i get the feeling it’ll be one boat getting slashed publicly for every 10 ‘they didn’t see’ because lets face it they’re not gonna want to keep them on their own shores either.

  9. The BBC just can’t help itself, it has to keep pushing a false narrative. From the article:

    French police have waded into shallow waters off a beach south of Boulogne and used knives to slash an inflatable small boat – packed with men, women and children – that was wallowing, dangerously, in the waves.

    Then you watch the video and it’s all fighting aged men.

  10. Based finally the french do something  other than shoulder shrug.

  11. Finally France are starting to act on stopping these boats from setting off.

  12. Why can’t they arrest the drivers and organizers here for human trafficking?

  13. I could only see 1 woman and child on that boat. The rest were men, ~30 of them.

    Obviously it’s impossible to know, but on balance of probability, I’d say most of these people aren’t refugees or escaping persecution, they’re likely to be economic migrants.

    The countries that these men leave behind depend on them to build and grow and develop. These countries will be hollowed out by having a limited economically active workforce, and it just exacerbates the problem.

    Additionally, how do we know these aren’t murderers, rapists, thieves, criminals etc.?

    This small boats crossings issue is a ticking time bomb for the UK. The only real solution is drastic action such as this to deter the crossings.

  14. Why would they put their children through something as dangerous as this when they’re already in a safe country?

  15. Why not stop putting them up in hotels giving them a stippen and a phone, they won’t even want to come then

  16. Well considering we paid them £5m to try and help curb the boats and they just kept coming!! Slashing the boats with a pen knife is not £5m worth of work!! But thanks I suppose!!

  17. Wow it turns out they’ve been able to stop the boats all along but they’ve just been unwilling

  18. They’re literally carrying guns, few shots on the air to scare them back and a few in the smugglers

  19. Probably only because Macron is visiting Downing Street next week

  20. What did we do threaten buy all the white flags so they couldn’t use them anymore

  21. Only because this one boat broke down. They ignore all the others.

  22. There are at least three women (two near the end) and one child visible in the video.

    However yeah it’s almost all men.

    And this is the exact right response from the police. The water is only waist high, no one is in more danger than swimmers at the beach, and it stops the whole thing in its tracks.

    It would be much more dangerous to let them attempt to cross.

    Would be nice to introduce a licencing system where any boat of this type needs a permit and those without are automatically impounded when they turn up.

  23. Let’s hope the help continues, and we take some sort of control back over our boarders.

  24. It’s wild that it takes cameras rolling for them to enforce basic border control, shouldn’t this be the standard instead of a PR stunt? If they actually did this consistently, maybe the crossings would drop. But hey, at least we got a dramatic photo out of it.

  25. Haven’t watched this video…but if true…hope this continues…

    There’s already far too many economic migrates taking the piss in the UK..

  26. Nice to see the actual result of some real politics at play, where the UK government have been pressuring the French to take some action.

    I have more faith in this working than I do the fanciful ideas of the right wing (use the Navy to escort them back etc.).

    The odds of Reform (and its supporters) giving Labour any credit for this? Unlikely.

  27. The best part about the video was the trafficker was standing with them and no one does fuck all

  28. Good – a simple but elegant solution. Those boats are likely expensive and knowing you won’t get more than 10m into the blue before sinking might deter people. One can hope, at least. Long may it continue.

  29. I’ll believe it when I see the numbers consistently drop, could just a be a photo stunt / temporary pressure on the French.

  30. Has there been the proper checks and balances and review of that boat slashing? Also has anyone considered the humans rights?

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