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A French official in charge of stopping illegal immigration has sparked fury by saying the number of small boat crossings to Britain in the last few years "is not huge". The shocking comments were given in an interview by Xavier Delrieu, head of the Office for the Fight against the Smuggling of Migrants. He is the French equivalent of the head of Britain's Border Force.

He was speaking specifically about the number of Channel crossings in the last two years in particular, which has seen 76,000 migrants illegally arrive in Britain. Mr Delrieu made the comments in an interview with La Voix Du Nord, a French local newspaper. He spoke in the same week that the number of people to arrive this year crossed 40,000.

In those two years, dozens have also died making the perilous journey. He said: "There were 636 successful (boat) crossings in 2025 compared to 633 last year, it's not huge. On the other hand, the number of migrants is 39,000 (that) managed to cross while we were at 36 000 in 2024, because there are many more migrants per boat, on average 62 in 2025 against 53 last year.

"To date, with police pressure on the beaches, 58% of crossings are prevented, despite 200 days of favourable weather. If one day we get to 80%, it will become much less profitable for these networks. The phenomenon of taxi-boats spoils these good results a little, which is why we must make a maximum of interceptions to harm this traffic. If we can find the right [way to stop] taxi boats, we'll be more efficient."

He added: "In 2018, the small boats did not exist, it was the Iranians who created this practice. In 2020, it developed because with the health crisis, the networks could no longer pass by truck and they fell back on the small boat, they saw that it was profitable, with a success rate up to 70% at the beginning.

"The Kurds got their hands on the sector because they were the most advanced on this crime, it allowed them to make big profits immediately, and they stayed on it."

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: "These comments are simply inaccurate. They are wrong. There is a serious problem in the Channel which has been happening before us each week for years now.

"They are large numbers and it is the British taxpayer which is footing the bill for hotels, accommodation and everything that goes with housing the migrants here.

"The comments are frankly, insulting."

More than 700 migrants arrived in a fresh wave last weekend after a month without any small boats crossing the Channel. Several other journeys took place last week.

Britain spends millions of pounds each year on CCTV, defences in France and extra security to try and prevent the journeys.