A senior Belgian police officer has proposed a naval blockade in the English Channel to stop migrant boats before they reach French waters, following a surge in launches from Belgian coastal towns. Christiaan De Ridder, Deputy Chief of West Flanders Police, said: 'We have to stop them before they get to the UK. We have to find a way to stop them on the water. If we could put up a naval barrier so they don't get into French waters, everything would stop.'
The call comes as criminal smuggling gangs have moved operations into Belgium, exploiting gaps in French coastal policing. Belgian police have made 40 arrests of suspected traffickers and detained over 360 migrants since the start of the year, recording around 30 crossings — a record compared to French efforts. Scenes in the Belgian seaside town of Middlekerke have shown migrants sprinting through residential streets to reach boats.
France has faced criticism for allowing dinghies to head towards British waters without intervention, despite Britain pledging £660 million over three years to tackle the crossings. Footage from Gravelines beach near Dunkirk showed migrants boarding a vessel with no police in sight, contradicting French pledges of stepped-up patrols. Active enforcement by French officers is rare; last week, when police deflated a migrant dinghy, they were referred to a human rights watchdog.
The total number of Channel crossings has surpassed 200,000 since monitoring began in 2018. However, the Mayor of Dunkirk, Jean Marie Emmery, dismissed the Belgian proposal as unnecessary, arguing on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that legislative reform is the only viable solution. 'We don't need that,' he said. 'We need a change of the law. We need a change in Great Britain and in Europe and in Belgium and then it will stop.'
