France threatens to arrest British activists who are stopping the illegal boats

France has threatened to arrest British activists from the Raise the Colours movement who have been attempting to stop migrant crossings from French beaches to the UK.

The French interior minister, Laurent Nunez, reportedly demanded that members of these groups be identified and arrested for possible obstruction and aggravated violence, following a series of actions involving the destruction of dinghies and engines.

According to government figures, 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 via the Channel, marking the second-highest annual total on record.

In March 2023, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak committed UK taxpayers to providing France with nearly £500 million over three years to help reduce the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats. This brings the total amount France has been given to combat the small boats to £800 million since 2015.  The funding was intended to increase French enforcement capacity, improve intelligence sharing and enhance border surveillance to prevent illegal crossings.

However, it is no secret that the UK government has been complicit in these illegal crossings.  In August 2023, Stop the Invasion filmed inflatable dinghies that had carried illegal immigrants across the channel being loaded onto a truck in Dover and shipped back to France for reuse.

As the UK government is doing nothing to stop the boatloads of illegal migrants but instead assisting them, activists are having to take matters into their own hands.

In November 2025, Ryan Bridge, co-founder of the patriotic Raise the Colours movement, was interviewed on GB News. “Why is our government giving so much money to France … over the years, £800 million, I believe, for this to happen,” Bridge said.

According to a video posted on Facebook, the Raise the Colours movement has taken to wading into the sea, shouting at migrants and allegedly slashing small boats and their engines before they can be used for Channel crossings.  Called ‘Operation Overlord’ or ‘Operation Stop the Boats’; they describe their action as “civilian border control.”

In a video posted on Twitter in early December 2025, Raise the Colours showed a video of additional destroyed dinghies and issued a direct challenge to Keir Starmer:

In response, the French government is threatening to arrest Raise the Colours activists who are attempting to stop migrant crossings from French beaches to England.  Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wants to see the Britons arrested for possible obstruction and aggravated violence.

The French government’s threat of arrest comes amid ongoing tensions between the UK and France over the French delay in adopting more aggressive tactics at sea to prevent the migrants’ dinghies from leaving for England.

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to introduce a new strategy involving elite police units intercepting people smugglers’ dinghies at sea, but this has yet to be implemented due to police union concerns.

Raise the Colours claims that they have been forced to take matters into their own hands because the French and British authorities are failing to take the tough action needed to stop the boats, with government figures showing that 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the Channel, making last year the second-highest annual small boat total on record.

Sources for this article include:‘France threatens to arrest Britons who stop migrant crossings’, The Telegraph, 2 January 2026

Featured image taken from Danny Tommo on Twitter (now X)