Less than 24 hours after abandoning his attempt to head for Britain, a desperate migrant on crutches finally succeeded in his bid to cross the channel.
The bearded middle-aged man, who could only hobble towards the waves aided by a friend, was featured in today's paper as a graphic illustration of how France is unable to stop the tide of dinghies across the Channel.
On Tuesday, despite the firing of tear gas grenades by 50 armed French police equipped with riot shields, your reporter watched as even this disabled migrant was able to slip through the thin blue line of gendarmes on Gravelines beach near Calais.
And he reached the water – whereupon he was protected by increasingly controversial rules barring officers from even touching migrants or their dinghies.
On that occasion he was not able to join maybe 60-plus fellow travellers on the giant 'taxi boat' dinghy which arrived to pick them up.
