France has backed off its promise to block migrant boats, sources told the BBC.

France has backed away from recent promises to intervene more strongly in the seas to prevent small boats from crossing the English Channel, according to multiple sources contacted by the BBC.

There is evidence that the current political turmoil in France is partly to blame, but this will deal a blow to the UK government’s attempts to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, dangerously crowded inflatable boats are leaving the shore almost daily in shallow tidal canals near Dunkirk port.

Martin Hewitt, the UK’s border security chief, has already expressed “frustration” at France’s delays, but the BBC has now heard from multiple sources in France that promises of a new “maritime doctrine” under which patrol boats would intercept inflatable boats and bring them back to shore ring hollow.

“This is just a political maneuver and blah blah blah,” said one official closely connected to French maritime security.

The Channel’s Maritime Prefect told the BBC that the new doctrine for taxi boats was “still being studied”.

Former Home Secretary Bruno Retailleau is widely seen as pushing for a more aggressive approach on the Channel, particularly in the UK.

This culminated in a summit meeting between President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Kiir Starmer last July.

The focus at the time was on plans to intercept so-called “taxi boats” that smugglers now use to cruise close to the coastline and collect passengers already standing in the water.

French police rarely intervene because overcrowded taxi boats are considered too great a risk to both officers and civilians.

But a few days before the summit, we saw French police entering the sea south of Boulogne to cut the side of a taxi boat that was caught in the waves and drifting close to shore.

In London, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office immediately reacted to our footage, calling it “a truly important moment” and proof that France was already starting to take stronger measures to stop small boats off its coasts and potentially at sea.

Shortly afterwards, a source in France’s interior ministry told the BBC that a policy change was imminent.

“We will begin maritime intervention within a few days after the doctrine is revised,” the source said.

But since then, Ritejo has lost his ministerial post in a series of recent and confusing reshuffles, and a distracted French government appears to be focusing on other crises.

“New measures at sea may never happen,” said Peter Walsh, who studies the issue at the Oxford Migration Observatory.

Meanwhile, migrant boats are still leaving France, and not just on the beaches.

A retired chip shop owner who lives next to an inland canal just off the coast of Gravelines said he had seen them leave as many as four times a day.

He showed videos of the boat, including one showing people boarding it in the middle of the canal and one recently showing a police patrol boat circling another balloon and making no attempt to stop it from leaving.

Jean Deldicque said, “It’s crazy, it’s crazy, it’s crazy. We have to stop the boat.”

One maritime expert, who asked that his name not be used because of his close ties to the country, said the L’Aa Canal was shallow enough for security forces to intervene without putting people’s lives at serious risk.

Other canals and rivers in the region were sometimes blocked with ropes or chains, but these methods often proved ineffective against highly adaptable smuggling gangs.

Although French politics clearly played a part in thwarting the British government’s attempts to slow the number of sailings by small ships, legal and moral issues also proved decisive.

The biggest obstacle to stopping balloons at sea, cited by multiple sources, is the fear that there will almost inevitably be more deaths and prosecution of the security forces involved.

“The French Navy is against this,” one source said. “They realize this kind of mission is extremely dangerous and there is a risk of being implicated and going to court.”

A less ambitious idea mentioned by British officials – giving French police more legal powers to intervene on beaches and go deeper into the water to stop boats – was also rejected. In fact, if it was truly considered.

Current regulations allow French police and firefighters to intervene in shallow water only to rescue people who appear to be in imminent danger. That’s certainly what we saw at Eco Beach near Boulogne in early July.

There was confusion from the beginning about France’s commitment on this issue. Several French security sources said it was highly unlikely that police would jump into the sea and stop the boat.

However, French unions considered the changes and proposed rejecting them.

Police union spokesman Jean-Pierre Cloez said the interior minister’s plan, raised earlier this year, was currently “on hold”.

“At the time we thought it was (too) risky. For now, the rules are the same. There is no change in the way we work.”

Cloez and others have both cited ongoing equipment, training and staffing shortages.

This does not mean France is giving up its commitments to patrol its beaches or intercept smugglers and their boats on land.

The operation is large and sophisticated, stretching along more than 150 kilometers (90 miles) of coastline.

The UK is paying for much of the work under the terms of the Sandhurst Treaty, which is currently being renegotiated for renewal next year.

Meanwhile, volunteer rescuers along France’s northern coast continue to pull people, sometimes corpses, out of the water.

Some volunteers have expressed frustration at receiving repeated requests from maritime authorities to escort inflatable boats into British waters. This process may take several hours.

But they also highlighted the unique challenges facing anyone trying to engage with the channel.

“It may seem strange, but if they don’t ask for help, we can’t force them to accept it,” says Gérard Barron, head of the Boulogne Marine Rescue Volunteers.

“Crews reported to me that they sometimes saw swords flashing as they approached small boats with too many people on board and asked if they needed help.

“They have also occasionally seen young people holding infants on the water and threatening to drop them if we get close.”

With 45 years of rescue experience behind him, Barron admits there is now some anger at France’s failure to do more to stop smugglers.

He believes many lives could be saved if existing rules banning people from taking to sea in flimsy, unlicensed and overcrowded boats were enforced.

Additional reporting by Paul Pradier