French beaches
 

I have a silly civilian question...

Is it possible for the RAF or Army to have some air resources within our territorial limits but maintaining excellent overwatch over certain French beaches, such as when there is observable activity with rafts getting ready to launch, or lots of cheap prepay mobiles congregating, that we call the French police and alert them pre-sailing? And in good weather use a satellite.

Good practice for the operators I'd have thought.. The current plan for British police/Border Patrol to be walking up and down French beaches is an obvious non-starter to all except PP..

arf23

Like this?

I'm sure I heard a snippet on the news saying that a number of EU countries had agreed to do flights too. But I can't find a reference.

CG

If you look at FR24, from time to time, you will see a UK Coastguard aircraft flying racetracks over the Channel.

BBC news reports that in today's talks (from which PP was disinvited) apparently EU Border Force agreed to do it themselves, from 1st December. How much difference that'll make remains to be seen.

From the press reports the French already know where they are launching from - they just and watch them. I’m not sure what value providing additional confirmation would provide.

It rather baffles me what the problem is the French have (other than no interest). When lots of migrants were crossing from Turkey to the Greek Islands last year, the EU gave Turkey a sum of money and the Turks stopped it. The Turks regularly patrol the areas concerned. OK, the very occasional dingy gets across, say no more than 1 per month. If the Turks can do it, why can’t the French? Yes, I know the answer, and that is the problem.

The Turks can turn back boats in international waters - there aren’t any international waters in the narrows of the Channel. Just English or French waters and once in English waters ‘we’ are obliged to take them in.

The French don’t have legal powers to prevent people leaving their shores…yet.

But why the French want to retain them for leaving ?
They are illegal immigrants willing to leave by themselfs. It sounds more like a solution than a problem... for the French of course

If only we were still members of the Dublin convention !

Break out the Sentinel R1's....

Buy 4 or 5 still woiuld work out cheaper than using a A400

https://www.diamondaircraft.com/en/s...-mpp/overview/

Absolutely no point. Plenty of photos and video footage of French police standing and watching as they launch their boats. And with over 25,000 this year at over $6,000 a person, all in cash… one can only wonder. Can’t one.

The French police do not have powers to prevent people going to sea in dinghies, or leaving the country if they so wish. Just as UK police do not have powers to stop people going to sea in UK , and sailing out of UK water if they so wish.

It is thus actually legally difficult for the police to stop the dinghies going to sea.

They can intervene if they are in breach of the rules concerning safety at sea. But If they have equipment to "categorie 6" - which generally they do - then they are entitled to go out to 2nm.

Thus the police have to prove that they are illegally in the country (not easy). Or that they are intending to commit a crime (again not easy, because sailing into UK waters is not a crime).

These people do not want to be in France (or elsewhere in EU) because it is too difficult to live and work. Here in France it is very hard to work in the black economy and there are heavy sanctions for both worker and employer if they do. Also, there is no access to any healthcare without "carte vitale" which you only get if you are registered worker and paying tax and social charges. Also, impossible to get anywhere to live without ID card and registering with local community, and there are rules about how many can be registered at same address. Similar rules in most other EU countries.

By contrast, in UK you can easily work on the black market. Nobody has ID cards so you can easily pretend to be somebody else to work, and as long as you keep your head down, you are unlikely to be caught. Also no rules preventing people living in overcrowded squats because you don't have to register your address. And if you get ill, the NHS will not turn you away even if you have never paid a penny of tax. So hardly a surprise they all want to go to UK.

So UK should sort out the reasons that make it so attractive to illegal migrants before they blame France (and EU) for not stopping people who do not want to stay in France from leaving, and blaming French police for not exercising powers which they don't have...

And in addition, we need to amend the law to reduce/remove the litany of objections/obstacles to removals. Dublin was not the answer - rarely enforced because the immigration "industry" made it so difficult to do so.

The migrants keep coming because they perceive - correctly - that once here, they'll never be removed. Patel is trying to do something with the new bill to improve the situation, but is being fought tooth and nail by the "industry". In fairness, there need to be checks and balances against state overreach, but they need to be based in some form of logic rather than the pure theoretical they are now.

The other thing which is often omitted in the debate is that if the migration continues unabated, the source countries become ever more untenable.

Time the UK had another think about ID cards? Many people have ID cards for where they work, the military, NHS local government etc. As a 74 year-old volunteer, I have photo ID for my position. What is the problem?

Trim Stab, all clear. But sticking a knife in those dinghies comes with no redress against the authorities for all the reasons you gave. Every boat I've seen is grossly overloaded. that's a safety reason to not allow departure. The French don't want to keep them there.

Also on FR24 there is a civilian drone operating out of Lydd airport. It patrols just the UK side of the boundry. The French don't want it their side it might see their navy 'escorting' them over.
mmitch.

Because they won’t work, you can pick up fake documents already to allow you to work, so you would be able to hide behind them, you would be better off retina scanning the population, dna sampling or fingerprinting, but in those cases those here illegally would slip through possibly. Terrorism is another excuse for them, but as the Tube and bus bombings were carried out by U.K. residents it negates the advantage as they would have been legitimate card carriers.

Personally I would allow illegals here to work, until they are booted out or accepted, at least they would be putting into the economy instead of taking out.

They would indeed - in theory - be a cheap solution. The problem is structural. Frontex puts out competitive tenders for these sorts of operations in EU (not just handed out to tory MPs mates like in UK). It is very difficult for private companies to make money out of bidding for Frontex operations. There is a big capital cost fo acquiring and running a fleet of such aircraft, and then the contract is typically of short terms and is tendered out again at the end of the contract. Si there is no stability for private companies offering ISR aircraft, and margins are tiny. Also, Frontex is an EU operation to prevent people entering EU - not leaving - so really this is not a priority for Frontex.

So it comes back to UK government paying for them. The French would likely insist that they are based in France if they are patrolling the French coastline, and subject to French regulations, and EASA regulated and EASA AOC. Rather unlikely that the UK government would agree to set up a French company to run such an operation...