These people, among whom were more than 20 children, were counted in an inflatable boat when it set off from northeastern France on Sunday evening, the rescue service SNSM said in an online statement.
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This number exceeds the previous record of people in one boat, which was recorded last month when 165 people successfully crossed this busy waterway.
SNSM said on Monday that this is a “new and sad record for the number of people crammed into these flimsy boats.”
Last week, an inflatable boat heading to the United Kingdom capsized in the English Channel after its engine caught fire, with more than 150 people on board. A large-scale search and rescue operation was launched to find them.
The inflatable boat that set off from France on Sunday evening was accompanied all the way to British waters by French rescue vessels, and later the baton was taken over by the British, SNSM local branch director Jean-Marc Lamblin told the AFP news agency.
He noted that the inflatable boat was about 15 meters long.
“For three months now, we have been seeing more and more” such 15-meter-long boats, said J.-M. Lamblin.
“We recently exceeded the record of 150 people and did not think there could be more, but now there really are no limits,” he added.
The UK Home Office did not confirm the exact number of people in the boat but condemned the “irresponsible and dangerous tactics employed by criminal gangs who help organize these crossings” across the Channel.
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Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s spokesperson said that “the horrific images (…) of small babies being carried into these sea-inappropriate boats are simply shocking.”
“They reveal the reality behind ruthless smuggling gangs who are willing to risk human lives for profit,” he added.
The UK has been trying for years to find a way to curb illegal migration across the English Channel, through which tens of thousands of people have arrived by boat on the southeast coast of England in recent years.
The government aims to “destroy the gangs” organizing these dangerous crossings, among other things, by strengthening cooperation with France.
In April, London and Paris signed a new three-year agreement on these crossings, agreeing to allocate up to 766 million euros to strengthen French law enforcement.
The UK government says this strategy is working and points out that the number of migrants arriving by boats or vessels in the first half of 2026 decreased by more than 42% compared to the same period last year, to just over 14,000 people.
However, in recent weeks, the number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel has suddenly increased sharply, and on July 29 a daily record for this year was reached when 752 people crossed the Channel in one day.
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