French authorities have deployed a new floating barrier in the Prefecture of Pas-de-Calais in the north of the country in an effort to hinder illegal migrant boats trying to cross the English Channel and catch people smugglers.
The barrier, which has been labelled a “floating dam,” was deployed on the Canche River last week in Étaples and is designed to stop so-called ‘taxi boats’ from picking up migrants before heading across the English Channel, the newspaper Le Parisien reports.
The barrier itself is made from yellow buoys connected tightly together with a chain and is anchored on each side of the Canche River making any crossing of the river impossible.
Similar barriers have been used in the past, including the famous Great Chain used in Constantinople to block access to the Golden Horn, preventing enemy ships from entering the city.
According to local authorities, illegals often wait in the water for the taxi boats and risk hypothermia due to the cold. They hope the new barrier will prevent smugglers from picking up migrants and possibly save the lives of some, as the migrants realise the boats cannot reach them.
“Since the beginning of the year, 22 taxi boats have been identified on the Canche, with an average of 46 migrants on each boat … without life jackets,” the state services in Pas-de-Calais said.
Authorities stated that the smugglers driving the boats like to use the Canche River as it is not as well patrolled as the beaches along the coast of the English Channel and some have been launching their voyages to the UK directly from the river.
How effective the new barrier will be in stopping people smugglers has yet to be seen and the authorities in Pas-de-Calais expect to review the deployment of the barrier in around 15 days.
However, some pro-migration associations are critical of the project, including the group L’Auberge des migrants, whose general delegate Pierre Roques told Le Parisien that the barrier may just make the situation in the area worse.
“People are going to go even further. When there is a strong police presence on the north of the coast, people leave from Le Touquet, so it triples the crossing time and the risks that go with it,” Roques said and added, “We have seen it for 10 years, nothing prevents people from passing through.”
Illegal crossings of the English Channel remain a major problem for the British government and despite promises from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to address the boat landings, the number of illegal arrivals passed 10,000 earlier in June.
So far this year, the BBC reports that, as of August 12th, over 16,000 illegals had landed in the UK, and that since 2018, the number of arrivals has topped over 100,000—peaking last year with 45,755 migrants arriving across the Channel.
Asylum claims are also reaching record levels not seen since 2002 when over 100,000 migrants applied for asylum in the UK.
The costs of housing illegal migrants and asylum seekers have also exploded due to the surge of arrivals, with some estimates claiming that the UK is spending around £6.2 million (€7.25 million) per day to house around 104,000 people in hotels around the country.
In an effort to save costs, the British government began housing asylum seekers on a barge called the Bibby Stockholm, but all 39 residents were removed from the vessel last Friday after it emerged that Legionella bacteria was found in the water system.
Prime Minister Sunak claims that he was informed of the situation last Thursday, although local officials in Dorset knew of the problem as early as Monday of last week and the UK Home Office was informed the following day.
