Huge gang of Channel migrants hoping to reach Britain attacks French cops and causes police vehicle to overturn by pelting windshield with rocks before descending on the officers trapped inside
- Three members of the gendarmerie were injured in Oye-Plage outside Calais
- A group of 38 migrants have been detained following the clashes, police say
A huge group of migrants hoping to reach Britain attacked French security forces who were patrolling a beach near Calais, pelting their vehicle with rocks until it overturned and then descending on the officers trapped inside.
Three members of the gendarmerie were injured in Oye-Plage outside Calais on France’s northern coast, prosecutors said late on Thursday.
Following the incident, 38 migrants were detained who had been seeking to cross the Channel on a small boat to Britain, prosecutors said.
The gendarmes had been patrolling the beach in all-terrain vehicles on Thursday morning when the migrants threw stones at them.
The windshield of one of their buggies shattered and then and swerved into soft sands ‘causing it to roll over’, prosecutors said.
Three members of the gendarmerie were injured in Oye-Plage outside Calais on France’s northern coast, prosecutors said late on Thursday. Pictured: French Gendarmes patrol the a beach near Calais in 2019
The migrants continued their attack on the three gendarmes stuck in the buggy ‘before a rapid intervention by their colleagues to free them’.
The three officers sustained wounds including to the head but have not been hospitalised.
London has repeatedly accused Paris of not doing enough to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. French officials insist they do seek to stop them on shore.
Rishi Sunak’s government has made a priority of stopping the small boat crossings but people are continuing to undertake the journey on an almost daily basis.
In November 2021, 27 migrants died when their boat capsized in the Channel. On Thursday, French authorities charged five military personnel over failing to come to their aid.
French police stand near as a group of more than 40 migrants run with an inflatable dinghy, to leave the coast of northern France and to cross the English Channel, near Wimereux, in 2021
The soldiers over failed to come to the migrants’ rescue, despite them making 15 emergency calls and begging French coastguards for assistance.
Many of those killed in the sinking were Iraqi Kurds aged between seven and 46, in what became the worst such disaster in recent times.
Just two people survived, and seven women and three children were among the dead.
During a call for help, one person who was already in the freezing Channel water phoned the French coastguard, only to be told: ‘Yes – but you are in English waters’.
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