More French riot police are patrolling the country’s northern beaches in a bid to deter migrant crossings, the Home Office has said.

Additional officers from the Compagnie Republicaine de Securite (CRS), France’s main anti-riot unit, will be sent to the Channel coast until March 2027.

There will be 100 instead of 50 on standby for so-called red days, when favourable weather and sea conditions make crossing attempts highly likely.

The CRS officers will be equipped with specialist public order powers to stop large groups gathering and boarding boats, the department said. They will be funded by the three-year £662m UK-France deal agreed in April.

According to French operational data provided by the Home Office, some 50,000 attempts by migrants to cross the Channel by boat have been prevented since the 2024 general election.

In recent weeks, migrant smugglers have started to set boats from Normandy rather than the Calais region, which has led to three arrivals in Hampshire. The first on September 6 saw migrants land at Eastney in Portsmouth, while the second on September 22 was due to arrive in Gosport but instead was taken to Dover by sea.

On October 4 a boatload of just under 150 people set off from Utah Beach in Normandy and was disembarked at Fort Blockhouse in Gosport, and taken to Manston in Kent to be processed. Each arrival has seen crowds of protesters gather at the scene, with an estimated policing cost for each operation of £200,000, as officers are drafted in from elsewhere in the country.

Departures so far west have been rare in recent years.

The provisional total for Channel crossings this year is 20,935. This is down 42 per cent on this time last year and 23 per cent below the figure at this stage in 2024.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Our collective efforts, on both sides of the Channel, are having an impact. Every prevention made by officers is a blow to the smugglers behind this trade. But we are not complacent. We will be relentless in pursuing the criminal gangs and bearing down on the small boats.”