BBC on French beach as police slash migrant ‘taxi-boat’ heading to UK

The BBC witnessed dramatic scenes on the beaches of northern France this morning when a boat was destroyed by the police moments before it went to the United Kingdom carrying dozens of migrants and asylum seekers.

The officers enter when men, women and children were about to leave the beach, and they entered the boat with a knife sitting in very shallow water.

All people on board the plane managed to break their way safely to the beach.

With a sharp rise in numbers, which makes the illegal crossing this year, the incident shows the great challenge facing the authorities in an attempt to stop smuggling that benefit from the road, and the difficulties that the French police are accustomed to.

Officers under the law are prevented from interfering as soon as there is a boat in the water, and they work on a very long area of ​​the French coast where the crossings leave.