Britain, France sign $894M deal to stop migrant boats crossing Channel

Britain and France inked a new $894 million agreement Thursday to stop small boats carrying asylum seekers attempting to get to England, which will include deploying riot police on the beaches of northern France.

Signed by British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood in Paris, the three-year deal, replacing an agreement from 2023 under the previous Downing Street administration, will see Britain reimburse France for the costs of trying to stop the crossings and comes with the option to withhold as much as $135 million at the end of the first year if targets are not met.

Under the deal, France will boost the number of law enforcement, intelligence and military officers tasked with going after smuggling gangs and intercepting people planning to cross the channel by 40% to almost 1,100.

French authorities will also assign at least 50 specialist “riot and crowd control” police officers to disperse “hostile crowds” and combat violence at locations where attempts to launch boats are underway.

Britain will pay to equip them.

France will also deploy drones, two helicopters and a specialist camera system at a cost of millions of dollars as part of the ratcheting up of efforts to catch people smugglers and migrants attempting to cross the channel illegally.

“Our work with the French has stopped tens of thousands of illegal migrants boarding boats headed to Britain. But we must do more. This landmark deal will stop illegal migrants making the perilous journey and put people smugglers behind bars,” said Mahmood.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez also praised the deal.

“This new agreement empowers our security forces to continue their crucial work in combating perilous Channel crossings and strengthening the safety of coastal residents,” he said.

However, the Conservative opposition in Westminster condemned it, accusing the government of handing over almost a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money “with no conditions at all.”

Reform UK said the government was throwing more money at a scheme that “has already failed.”

More than 6,000 people have made the crossing since Jan. 1, including nine small boats carrying 602 people who arrived in Dover on the south coast of England on Saturday.

The figure for the whole of 2025 was 41,472.

Refugee advocacy groups criticized what they said was investing yet more money directed at using force against people, many of them fleeing persecution and violence in their own countries, who had been denied any other means of getting to Britain to claim asylum.

“Now, we will be paying for police boots and batons to be wielded indiscriminately against men, women and children on the beaches of northern France for the crime of seeking safety,” said Sile Reynolds of Freedom from Torture.

“Many of the people who will be harmed by these heavy-handed tactics have already endured state violence during their flight from persecution. Now they will face the full ferocity of the French riot police -- a security body that has been criticised by the United Nations committee against torture for excessive use of force,” she said.

The Refugee Council said that by fixating on the small boast the British government was attacking the symptom and not the cause, saying that no amount of law enforcement would deter desperate people from taking the risk.

“We know from our frontline services why people risk their lives to reach the United Kingdom: many already speak some English, have family here, or have cultural connections to Britain. Without safe routes to reach the U.K., these men, women and children will be forced into dangerous and potentially deadly small boat crossings,” said Imran Hussain, the council’s external affairs director.

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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 9:59 AM.