Channel migrants 'terrorise' seaside towns on France's north coast as police struggle to cope

Clashes with police in the small town of Gravelines, near Dunkirk are commonplace.

Philippe, a resident in the town, told GB News: "We're being terrorised by mobs of migrants.They're not just fighting with police. They're damaging our property and cars.

"They seem to be increasingly desperate to get across to Britain. When they can't launch their boats for whatever reason, they go on the rampage, fighting with police."

GB News obtained video of one recent incident of disorder in the town, where around 100 migrants clashed with police in a local neighbourhood.

The group had been unsuccessful in their efforts to launch from the nearby beach at Gravelines, which is one of the major hot spots for small boat activity.

The video shows the group marauding through residential streets in the early hours, many shouting and chanting "Allahu Akbar".

As police vehicles arrive, they're pelted with rocks and other makeshift missiles in the dimly-lit streets, before officers confront the migrants and make arrests.

The increasing disorder and criminality in Gravelines, Dunkirk and Calais is being replicated by a surge in violence in migrant camps.

Brutal clashes, including shootings and stabbings, have turned squalid shelters into regular war zones.

The worst violence has been concentrated within the camp at Loon-Plage near Dunkirk, where scores of migrants have been shot in the past year, more than half a dozen fatally.

The increasing violence in the camps is mainly the result of turf wars between different smuggling networks, and groups of mainly African migrants who try to board boats without paying.

Beaches near Gravelines have become flashpoints, with French police in riot gear intervening in chaotic launch attempts, firing tear gas into the surf in vain attempts to disperse groups wading into the water.

One Gravelines shopkeeper, who requested anonymity, said: "It’s like living next to a war zone," and there had been repeated break-ins at his premises.

Similar complaints echo through Dunkirk’s outskirts, where thefts of bicycles, tools, and food have spiked by over 30% in the past six months, according to regional police logs.

Graffiti scrawled on sea walls and damaged beach huts are daily occurrences.

In Calais, a hub for thousands of Eritrean, Sudanese, and Afghan asylum seekers, street-level skirmishes between rival groups have spilled into public spaces, prompting school closures and evening curfews in affected neighbourhoods.

GB News filmed as groups of migrants wandered through Calais, Gravelines and nearby Grand-Fort-Philppe in broad daylight, many wearing their distinctive orange life jackets.

There were no attempts by police at any of those locations to stop and confiscate the life preservers from migrants.

One senior maritime security source told GB News: "The distribution of lifejackets to migrants simply enables these crossing attempts. The very least local police should be doing is taking these lifejackets off them when they see migrants wearing them or carrying them in public."

Across France's northern coastal communities, thousands of migrants are still living rough in the nearby camps.
But with Winter looming, the opportunities to cross are far fewer, simply adding to the frustration amongst migrants and risking of even more violence in already fearful local towns and villages.

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