Police officers attempt to prevent people from boarding an inflatable boat to cross the English Channel, on the beach at the northern French town of Gravelines, on July 29, 2025. SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP
Nearly 42,000 people crossed the English Channel in inflatable boats in 2025, with most aiming to seek asylum in the United Kingdom. To curb these dangerous crossings, several hundred police officers and gendarmes have been deployed along the northern coast of France. In a previously unpublished decision dated December 17, 2025, France's Defender of Rights Claire Hédon conducted a severe assessment of law enforcement officers' use of "intermediate force" weapons on the beaches.
Since 2022, the independent administrative authority has received around 40 complaints on the issue, nearly all from the migrant advocacy group Utopia 56, and investigated 36 incidents. In its 18-page decision, it documented the lack of transparency and information concerning the use of rubber-bullet launchers, tear-gas grenades and sting-ball grenades, and recommended "excluding" them from being used "when the sole aim of security forces is to prevent people from boarding a vessel."
"The use of intermediate force weapons puts people in danger," Hédon told Le Monde. "The goal of preventing departures is understandable, given the dangerous nature of the crossing, and law enforcement are playing a protective role, but it cannot be done at any cost."
