French riot police, deployed under a UK-France deal, are authorised to use water cannon, CS gas, and batons against asylum seekers in northern France. The £660m deal aims to prevent small boat launches, but refugee charities condemn the potential use of water cannon as "sickening" and inhumane.
French riot police deployed in northern France under a £660m UK deal are authorised to use water cannon, CS gas, and batons against asylum seekers. Refugee charities have condemned the move as "sickening" and "inhumane".
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth likened migration to an 'invasion' of European coastlines, urging stronger defence contributions from European countries during a speech in Normandy on the 82nd D-Day anniversary, while skipping the main international ceremony.
Two women, both around 20 years old and believed to be of Sundanese origin, died when a boat carrying 82 migrants ran aground on a beach in northern France on Sunday. Three people sustained serious injuries and 14 others had moderate injuries. The incident occurred as part of ongoing migrant crossings across the English Channel, with 41,472 people arriving in the UK by small boat in 2025.
A migrant boat carrying 82 people ran aground on a beach in northern France, killing two women and injuring 16 others. The vessel departed from Hardelot beach near Boulogne-sur-Mer but engine failure caused it to drift. Three injured have serious burns from fuel. The women, believed to be Sudanese nationals in their 20s, died from asphyxiation. This is the third deadly migrant crossing incident in the Channel in just over a month.
Kurdish Syrian man, 26, said he fled forced conscription by YPG militia because he ‘didn’t want to kill people’An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees. Continue reading...
A proposed three-year deal with Paris is aimed at stopping migrants crossing the Channel on small boats.
