Lionel Gougelot / Photo credits: SAMEER AL-DOUMY / AFP
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06:37, December 5, 2023
According to figures made public this Monday, December 4, by the prefect responsible for security and defense in the northern zone, the number of clandestine crossings in the Channel was reduced by 35%. A result made possible thanks to the increase in resources and personnel to fight against smuggling networks.
The number of illegal crossings in the Channel would have fallen from 44,000 in 2022 to 29,000 this year, according to figures from the prefect responsible for security and defense in the northern zone. A result made possible thanks to the increase in resources and personnel to fight against smuggling networks. Last March, a new agreement between France and Great Britain made it possible to release an envelope of 541 million euros over three years to implement a vast plan to combat illegal crossings, including cutting-edge equipment that the British ambassador to France came to Lille to be introduced.
“The idea is really to break these networks”
All-terrain vehicles and motorcycles to patrol the beaches, ultra-sophisticated drones and night vision means. This cutting-edge equipment against smuggling networks, financed by the British government, presented this Monday to the British ambassador, made it possible, according to the prefect Louis-Xavier Thirode, to reduce illegal crossings by a third. This year.
“The idea is really to break these networks. The increase in British aid, but also the constant mobilization of the police, allows us to hope for other good results next year,” declared Louis -Xavier Thirode at the microphone of Europe 1.
300 smugglers
Means which also made it possible to arrest 300 smugglers in one year. But the mafias are increasingly violent when the police disrupt their trafficking, observes General Courtès, head of the gendarmerie in Hauts-de-France.
“We are seeing more and more aggressive behavior from migrants because we are preventing them from passing through. After a while, they are on edge, so they are more willing to engage in violence. The last case we had, it was a gendarme who found himself with a dagger buried 20 centimeters in the calf”, reported General Courtès. The phenomenon of crossings to Great Britain is still far from being contained, even by the admission of law enforcement officials. Smuggling networks always find ways to circumvent surveillance systems.