A senior British politician accused the French government of attempted intimidation after a warship made a close pass and commenced a live firing exercise unannounced while he was observing migrant boat crossings in the English Channel.
Conservative Party home affairs spokesman Chris Philp was joined by government-adjacent news outlets on a hired boat in the English Channel on Wednesday morning to record interview pieces about the boat migrant crisis, but was interrupted by a small French warship engaging in what was said to be a live firing exercise. Philip called the shooting an apparent attempt at intimidation by the French, given the sea was otherwise clear of craft, the firing only took place as the French warship was at its closest point of approach to the British boat, and there was no warnings broadcast by radio beforehand.
British state media the BBC, which was interviewing Philp at sea as the firing commenced, caught in their footage the French patrol boat P676 Flamant passing approximately 300 meters to starboard while the Conservative politician delivered a piece to camera, and as the firing began. Coastal patrol boats of the Flamant type, which are mainly for coastal constabulary duties, carry no fixed naval weapons systems but can embark machine guns, and in this case the firing exercise was reported to be a French officer discharging a handgun at a towed target.
Philip told the BBC that the shooting in close proximity to his boat where there was plenty of sea room to exercise elsewhere “felt to me like an attempted intimidation to stop us covering migrant crossings”. He told the broadcaster:
It is extraordinary that the French Navy will fire live rounds to defend their waters against a visiting British politician but cannot bear to do anything about stopping illegal Channel crossings.
If France showed people smugglers half the seriousness they showed me, the boats would stop.
Instead, the French wave them through and pass them off to the British coastguard so it’s our problem.
Top Tory Philp said he would be lodging a complaint with the French Ambassador.
British newspaper of record The Times reported an understanding that the French government may in fact have told the British government it was planning a live-fire exercise ahead of time but that this information wasn’t otherwise made public. It is stated no notice to mariners was posted and no warnings were broadcast on marine radio. A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are in contact with the French authorities to understand the full context of this incident.”
The BBC reports sources inside the French government which states the patrol boat Flamant wasn’t engaged in monitoring illegal migrant boats at the time, yet that particular boat is a known veteran of the English Channel migrant crisis and it is not beyond the French to obscure their work. Secret missions to escort boat migrants into British waters before handing them off were revealed in 2020.
Efforts to hide operations went even further after these discoveries, as French warships working on the people smuggling mission when turned off their trackers to ‘go dark’ in the English Channel, unseen by public safety at sea and anti-collision systems. While it is not illegal for warships to do this, it is against best practice to do so in a crowded waterway in peacetime.
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