French police to get power to arrest migrants who enter country illegally

Telegraph

8 hours ago

French police are to get powers to arrest migrants who enter the country illegally as part of Emmanuel Macron's promised crackdown on Channel small boat crossings.
Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister, is proposing to reintroduce an offence that would allow French courts to prosecute migrants for 'illegal stays' in France.
The offence was abolished in 2012 by Francois Hollande, president at the time, under pressure from the EU amid concerns that convicting migrants in France would delay their removal and return to their home countries.
However, Mr Retailleau sees the measure as vital in not only creating a new deterrent but also enabling police to seize the mobile phones of migrants to help identify people smugglers, arrest and prosecute them.
The French have faced heavy criticism from British politicians for simply releasing migrants after intercepting their boats, enabling them to make repeated attempts to cross the Channel until they are successful.
Under current French law, police cannot arrest and detain migrants simply for illegally entering the country but need evidence that they have committed a separate criminal offence, such as people smuggling.
The French are preparing to adopt a new maritime doctrine where they will intercept migrant boats at sea for the first time, provided they are within 300 metres of the shore.
Officers have already tested the tactic where they used knives to slash the rubber tubes of a dinghy in shallow waters. They have also used jet skis to deploy underwater nets to snag the propellers of the small boats' outboard motors.
The moves come in tandem to the agreement, announced last Thursday by Sir Keir Starmer and President Macron for a trial of a 'one in, one out' scheme where Britain sends Channel migrants back to France in return for taking a similar number of asylum seekers from France.
Mr Retailleau pushed for the new law on illegal stays at a meeting of EU home affairs ministers in Luxembourg in June where they discussed upcoming returns rules.
A French interior ministry source said: 'Where I think there will be quite a lot of agreement is on criminalising illegal residence. It is a matter of principle. When someone breaks into your home, it is a crime. When someone breaks into a country, it should be a crime.
'But it goes beyond symbolism. It's simply a matter of investigation: we need to be able to search mobile phones. Why? Because when we look at mobile phones we find images that reveal links, for example with terrorism. This has happened to us several times in France.
'Above all, it allows us to trace, through images and a certain amount of data, the trajectory of illegal immigrants, their country of origin, their country of residence and their country of transit. So for us, the issue of illegal residence is not just a matter of principle or symbolism.
'It will enable us to investigate more effectively in the future. That is why we are also asking for the search of mobile phones to be made possible if we want to be much more effective.'
Meanwhile, there have been 2,378 arrivals in the first 12 days of July compared with 1,711 in 2023, according to analysis of Border Force figures by The Telegraph. Extrapolating that daily rate for the rest of July gives a total monthly figure of 6,143, which would be the highest on record.
It is thought people smugglers are offering migrants 'summer deals' of up to 50 per cent off, and targeting Eritreans and Albanians on social media.
More than 22,500 migrants have reached the UK in small boats so far in 2025, up 50 per cent on the same period in 2024 and the highest number in the first six months since the first dinghies arrived in 2018.
The French approach mirrors new legislation by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, whose borders Bill gives immigration officers and police new powers to seize illegal migrants' mobile phones or other electronic devices before any arrest if they suspect they contain information about organised immigration crime.
It is part of a suite of counter-terror-style measures to combat the people-smuggling gangs, including new offences of possession of equipment that could be used to facilitate small boat crossings or collecting information that could help the gangs.