France bans British anti-migration activists targeting migrant boats

PARIS (AP) — France said Wednesday that it has banned 10 members of a British group who attempted to stop migrants leaving French beaches on small boats bound for the U.K.

The ban on the members of the “Raise the Colours” group prevents them from entering or staying in France, the Interior Ministry said.

A ministry statement characterized the group’s militants as “extreme right” and described their activities in France as a potential threat to pubic order. It said the activists made trips to France to hunt for and destroy small boats used on the migration route across the English Channel.

The group’s activists have also carried out “propaganda activities” along the northern French coastline “aimed at the British public, which was called upon to strengthen the movement’s ranks in order to put an end to the migration phenomenon,” the statement added.

The ministry did not name the 10 British nationals but said they had been “identified as militants within the movement who carried out actions on French territory.”

Cross-Channel migration has become a thorn in relations between Britain and France in recent years and is a particularly divisive political issue in the U.K.

More than 41,000 people crossed the Channel to the U.K. in small boats last year, an increase on 2024 but fewer than the 2022 record, when more than 45,000 people made the crossing, according to the Home Office.