FRENCH officials have been blasted for spending British taxpayer cash on “pathetic” road barriers in a bid to stop small-boat crossings.
They are aimed at preventing people smugglers taking boats, motors and life jackets to beaches.
The wide open road barrier is in use only at night
GoogleThe site before the barrier was installed[/caption]
Two have been installed, including the one pictured here, at Les Hemmes de Marck, a mile east of Calais.
But it is on a road surrounded by flat fields with nothing to stop criminals simply driving around it.
And the barriers are in use only at night.
Reform MP Lee Anderson said: “They only close them at night, so free entry to the UK from dawn to dusk?”
And Alp Mehmet, chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: “The French are wasting our money.
“The smugglers will drive around it, it’s pathetic.”
The barriers are funded by the UK via a small boats treaty that sees us handing £476million to the French.
Marck mayor Corinne Noel said: “Smugglers generally deposit equipment at night, so our goal is to keep the area accessible in the day.”
The start of this year has seen the most migrant arrivals — almost 6,500 — since records began in 2018.
Migrants in a small boat cross the channel and head to BritainAFP
ERITREA TOPS CHANNEL HOPS
MIGRANTS from Eritrea make up one in five of those now crossing, figures show.
Asylum seekers from the East African state have overtaken Afghans as those most likely to arrive in small boats on the Kent coast.
More than 1,200 Eritreans crossed in the first three months of the year.
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