Four Albanian migrants tried to fly from France to Britain in a light aircraft, in what is believed to be a first, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The four, including two women and a child, were arrested along with the British pilot and two suspected British people smugglers as the plane prepared to take off from an airfield in Marck, near the northern port of Calais.
Calais is a springboard for migrants attempting to cross the Channel to Britain, normally by stowing away on trucks that board ferries.
Prosecutors said they had no record of a previous attempt to reach Britain in a private aircraft.
‘It is the first time that the Boulogne prosecutor’s office has been called in to investigate an attempt to smuggle migrants by air,’ the prosecutors’ office in Boulogne, near Calais, said.
The plane was still on the ground and the pilot was at the controls although the migrants had not boarded when the arrests took place.
The pilot and the people smugglers remain in custody and could face charges of ‘helping undocumented foreigners as part of an organised group’.
‘We do not yet have a full profile of the pilot. Investigators are waiting for British authorities to send information,’ the prosecutor’s office added.
A spokesman said the Albanian mother and her child had ‘disappeared’ after they were sent to hospital for checks.
The other Albanian woman and a man are being held in a migrant holding centre.
Just last week, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe outlined a plan to address the high number of migrants arriving in the country, but conceded he has no ‘magic wand’ to resolve a situation that is larger than France and won’t go away any time soon.
The plan calls for speeding up asylum claims, creating more housing for asylum-seekers and other measures to make life easier for people hoping to remain in France.
A new law in the making would help enforce expulsions of those deemed to be in the country illegally.
France has taken in far fewer migrants than Italy and Germany. The government nonetheless has been at times overwhelmed by the number of new arrivals and felt threatened by the anti-immigration rhetoric of politicians on the far right.
In a measure of the problem, Paris has cleared out a single neighborhood 34 times in two years and placed 2,771 migrants in housing on Monday.
Hundreds of others have returned to the port city of Calais since a huge makeshift camp on the French approach to the English Channel was cleared in October.
Philippe said housing for asylum-seekers would be increased by 10 per cent over two years, creating places for 7,500 more people.
But France also would become ‘more efficient’ in expelling those who are unauthorized to be in the country, he said.
Of 91,000 migrants detained for being in France illegally last year, 31,000 were ordered out and fewer than 25,000 left, the prime minister said.
France plans to work diplomatically to help stabilize nations like Libya, from where many migrants set off to reach Europe, and will work more closely with Italy, he said, without elaborating.
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