Smugglers clash with French riot police after launching migrant boats
The smugglers pelted officers with rocks and used engine oil to set fire to benches and debris in Gravelines in the early hours of Friday morning.
Britain and France have agreed to crack down on illegal Channel crossings, with French authorities trying to stop them from leaving their shores.
On Thursday, however, hundreds of migrants managed to evade French police and board dinghies bound for Britain.
The Telegraph witnessed dozens of officers armed with riot shields, assault rifles and helmets deployed on the streets of the seaside town, north-east of Calais, on Friday.
Volleys of tear gas from grenade launchers were fired at the smugglers during the short-lived confrontation, leaving the town wreathed in a veil of acrid white smoke.
Barricades were set up near the exit point of the River Aa which runs through the centre of the town and is used as a departure point for 'taxi boats' by the smugglers.
It is believed the smugglers assaulted the officers as a diversionary tactic to, unsuccessfully, try and secretly launch dinghies full with migrants to Dover.
Some of the smugglers, who were of Middle Eastern origin, jeered and mocked the officers while filming on their phones.
Two of the men were seen wearing bright orange life jackets around their necks.
The disorder broke out at around 5:30 am and lasted approximately 20 minutes before the smugglers were dispersed and fled back to their camps near Loon-Plage, a short 15-minute drive away to the east.
The clashes came after gendarmes failed to stop two dinghies crammed with approximately 70 migrants from sailing on Thursday morning from the shores of Gravelines beach to Dover.
A salvo of tear gas had done little to stop the crowd of around 200 migrants, including a family with a six-year-old son and four-year-old girl from trying to climb on.
On one of the dinghies, the smugglers had jumped overboard before the vessel was intercepted by a French police patrol boat and escorted into British waters.
The smugglers were allowed to walk back to their camps unhindered and try again the following day.
It is estimated that 320 migrants successfully arrived in the UK on Thursday via small boats.
Sir Keir Starmer, in a meeting with Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, in London that same day said he was 'very concerned' over smuggling routes through Germany.
Sir Keir said the Government was determined to intervene at every stage of the people-smuggling journey, citing last week's agreement with France which allows the UK to return some migrants to France.
He said: 'For a long time I've been very concerned about the fact that engines and component parts of the boats that are being used are travelling through and being stored in Germany.
'But they can't be seized because the law didn't accommodate for a country that had left the EU and therefore needed to be amended.'
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