French authorities say they successfully prevented two out of three small boats from setting off for the United Kingdom in May.
Nearly two-thirds of all attempts to cross the English Channel in small boats to reach British shores were interrupted last month.
That's according to the latest data released by French authorities. 53 of 82, or 65 percent of boat launches were reportedly disrupted, up from 40 percent in May.
"Our work with France is cracking down on small boat launches and stopping the criminal smuggling gangs in their tracks," British Border Security Minister Alex Norris was quoted as saying in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun. "This builds on the 44,000 small boat crossing attempts prevented since the election."
On Monday (June 15), some 50 migrants tried to cross the English Channel from beaches of at least four towns south of Calais, regional French news outlet La Voix du Nord reported Monday morning. Several police and emergency vehicles as well as multiple vessels reportedly responded to the attempts.
According to a La Voix du Nord reporter on the scene, police tried to prevent migrants from boarding small boats that had come to pick them up. At least one boat reportedly managed to leave with people on board.
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La Voix du Nord further reported that a "migrant in his forties" was hospitalized due to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).
According to a press release published Tuesday (June 16), by the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, authorities were alerted by a lighthouse to the presence of "several migrant boats" in the area. They sent a combination of smaller and bigger craft, and a jetski to try and bring some of the boats back to shore, or help migrants out of difficulty.
Three people were taken onboard and then safely disembarked at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer for medical care, the press release states. Overall, 35 migrants were rescued in three separate rescue operations.
Are the new schemes now proving their worth?
In late April, France and the UK renewed a three-year deal designed to stop migrants from crossing the English Channel irregularly.
The deal worth 766 million euros in funding will see France pledging to, among other things, increase border patrols on its shores by more than half, with the aim to deploy 1,400 officers to French beaches by 2029. The deal was first signed in 2018, and then extended in 2023.
The UK was previously pressuring France to change its policies so that police would be able to intercept so-called taxi boats, even once they had launched, however, intervening once a boat is at sea is still seen as posing difficulties and dangers to both the migrants and police or emergency service personnel.
Rights groups have moreover criticized the deal, saying it creates incentives for using more violent methods to stop migrants from reaching the UK.
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom and France also extended the "one-in, one-out" pilot scheme to combat irregular migration until October 1.
The scheme, which came into force in September 2025, is designed to facilitate the deportation of certain migrants with no legal perspective of staying in the UK back to France -- if it is proven that they had reached the UK from French soil using irregular means of travel.
In return for each such deportation, Britain has to accept one foreign national from France, who is likely to be granted asylum in the UK (for reasons such as having family ties there), as per the terms of the deal.
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Steep drop in immigration to UK
Meanwhile, the UK is experiencing one of the steepest declines in net migration and is at one of the lowest levels since 2012.
Small boat arrivals also declined in the first five months of this year: 9,142 migrants managed to reach the British coast between the beginning of the year and June 9 -- that's 38 percent fewer arrivals than during the same period last year.
According to data compiled by the BBC, 65 people were on an average boat that arrived in the UK from June 10 last year to June 9 of this year. Since 2021, this figure has more than doubled.
In terms of scale, small boat crossings only made up around five percent of all immigration into the UK from January 2025 to December 2025, according to the BBC.
According to the UK Home Office website, no migrants arrived on British shores from June 8 until June 14, the latest date available.