France's lifeboat service refused to rescue 120 migrants on a mega-dinghy bound for Portsmouth because they said it would have put the asylum seekers' lives in danger. The Prefecture of Manche spent £90,000 on deploying five boats and two helicopters to shadow the rickety vessel from Utah beach in Normandy towards England's South Coast. Once the dinghy entered British waters, the migrants on board were picked up by two RNLI lifeboats which took them to Eastney ferry port, where they landed on Sunday to be met by hundreds of anti-migrant protesters. Four of the five boats shadowing the mega-dinghy belonged to the SNSM, France's equivalent of the RNLI. However, the French voluntary organisation refused to let the migrants board their own lifeboats after deeming it to be too risky - leaving the RNLI to do so instead. A spokesman for the prefecture said: 'Determined to reach the United Kingdom, migrants making the crossing in makeshift vessels refuse the assistance offered by French services and only accept it when faced with situations of extreme urgency.'Given the structural fragility of the boats, which are consistently overloaded, the decision has been taken not to force migrants to board state-run rescue vessels, so as to avoid putting their lives at risk in the event of a shipwreck.'Every ship and harbourmaster is bound by Article 98 of the United Nations convention on the law of the sea and the safety of life at sea convention to help anyone in distress in the water when their lives are at risk. The migrants were brought ashore by RNLI vessels at Eastney Landing on SundayThe landing sparked protests which saw demonstrators clash with riot police until they were dispersed in the early hours of Monday Distress is defined as 'a situation wherein there is reasonable certainty that a person, a vessel or other craft is threatened by grave and imminent danger and requires immediate assistance'.Rescuers are meant to avoid attempting to board or redirect a boat if there is a danger it could capsize. But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp warned that France's failure to intervene in the early stages of migrant crossings was 'putting lives at risk'. 'Around 100 people have died trying to cross the Channel already. The French could easily end this – they could stop the boats as they embark in knee-deep water, or stop them at sea near the French coast.'The Belgians do this, and the Australians have done it in the past, with no loss of life at all. Allowing this to continue simply puts more lives at risk and allows the illegal crossings to continue. 'Shabana Mahmood should not be paying £660m of our money while the French refuse to do what other countries will do.'The two RNLI lifeboats were denied entry to two larger ports before docking near Portsmouth, it emerged yesterday. Their crews were barred from docking at Southampton Port and Portsmouth Harbour, with governing bodies threatening legal action if they did so. A broadcast on an open marine VHF radio revealed that Southampton Vessel Traffic Service and King's Harbour Master Portsmouth denied the RNLI permission to enter either port or their approaches and failure to comply could result in criminal prosecution.The crews of the Bembridge and Yarmouth lifeboats therefore decided to sail several miles further along the coast and dock instead at Eastney, where the confrontation later unfolded.Large crowds blocked traffic along the road leading away from the port in an attempt to stop the migrants reaching a processing centre in Kent. Police were seen carrying riot shields as they confronted the black-clad mob.