Watch as GB News Home and Security Editor Mark White shares new footage from the coast of France showing police intercepting vessels of Britain-bound illegal migrants.Speaking to Miriam Cates, Mark said the images could be the "first evidence" of French authorities intervening in migrant boats crossing the Channel.FULL STORY HERE.
00:00Mark, we could be on course for another record day of crossings.
00:04Yes, I mean, we might not pass the record today, but we're certainly on a very significant day.
00:09According to our sources, it looks like we may cross some 1,000 migrants who have crossed today.
00:17We want to show you this clip. This was a migrant boat a little earlier.
00:22The migrants were actually sending this out on social media live and claiming they had engine problems.
00:30Take a look at this.
00:47So there you see one of many small boats that were out in the English Channel.
00:53Several boats still out there as we speak.
00:56Migrants being picked up and taken to Dover.
01:00But another significant development today in terms of police tactics.
01:07What you're seeing there, of course, is the arrivals at Dover Harbour.
01:12And as I say, you know, we've had boatload after boatload with double boatloads of migrants.
01:18But take a look at this.
01:19This, we think, is the first evidence of French police officers pushing out into the English Channel, walking out there and trying to deal with migrants who are using a small boat, getting out onto that small boat.
01:38And these police officers used pepper spray on those migrants.
01:43And also officers firing, as you can see there, tear gas down onto the beach where other migrants are, trying to get out into the water to get onto their boats.
01:56Multiple tear gas canisters being fired out there.
02:01You can see them streaming through the sky down onto the beach and the smoke that is being pushed out there, back to the waters again.
02:11And you can see the French are wading out there quite a – well, not that far into the English Channel, but certainly up to high leg height in terms of the waves that are coming in there.
02:26And there's other images we've seen that show those French officers in close to the migrants who are trying to scramble onto the small boats and using pepper spray.
02:38So we think – it's hard to be 100% sure because, you know what I mean, it may have been used as a tactic before.
02:45But we've been waiting for what the British government have promised for some time, that the French were going to be more robust in the way they were dealing with these small boat migrants out in the English Channel on the beaches of France.
03:00It looks as though that's what we're seeing.
03:03However, Miriam, the big caveat to all of this is, yeah, this was them on one stretch of beach, Graveline Beach, just near Dunkirk.
03:13But other – many other boats have crossed and we're looking, as I say, well over 1,000 today.
03:20And that, despite the fact, we're told that about three or four boats got into difficulties and didn't make it all the way across, or at least some of the migrants had to come off them.
03:33Or we would be definitely looking at a one-day record for the year so far.
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