Il Nuovo Postiglione - One drowns in new Channel migrant tragedy: French officials

Two more people may be missing, the regional maritime prefecture told AFP. A total of 66 people were retrieved from the boat, it added.

Among those recovered, "one unconscious victim, in critical condition, was taken by helicopter to the hospital in Calais", while a second "could not be revived".

The critically hurt person's condition later stabilised, a source familiar with the case told AFP.

French sea rescue coordinators at Gris Nez, near the northern port city Calais, were warned during the night that a migrant boat was in difficulty less than eight kilometres (five miles) from the coast.

A rescue vessel arrived in the area at around 30 minutes past midnight (2330 GMT), maritime authorities said.

After the crew found one of the migrant boat's buoyancy tubes "deflated" and people "in the water", they brought everyone they could find back to Calais.

Another person was seriously hurt in a separate Channel crossing attempt Friday morning off Sangatte, just outside Calais, local authorities said.

- 'A tragedy' -

"This is of course a tragedy," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters after meeting local security forces.

"We're talking about women, men and children who are being used by people smugglers."

He was met by a crowd of dozens of demonstrators at Calais' central police station, AFP journalists saw.

Some were chanting against a "racist state and complicit police", as Darmanin continues to push for an immigration reform that would severely toughen conditions for irregular migrants.

The region around Calais, the jumping-off point for the shortest Channel crossing to Britain, has long been a hotspot for migration.

Two decades after the closure of a Red Cross centre in Sangatte, hundreds of people still live in tents and makeshift shelters near Calais and Dunkirk. They are hoping for an opportunity to make the crossing hidden in a truck or aboard a small boat.

Small boats are a political priority for the British government and a bone of contention with France, as tens of thousands of people a year have been making the dangerous crossing.

The human toll has been high, with one of the worst-ever sinkings two years ago claiming 27 lives.

- Nine deaths this year -

French security forces' attempts to thwart the migrants before they take to the water "have done nothing but increase the risk, distress and deaths", migrant aid group Utopia 56 wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The issue has become a huge political controversy for Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who wants to implement a contested scheme to deport arriving migrants to Rwanda as a deterrent.

Maritime authorities say nine people have been killed in migrant Channel crossings so far this year.

In late November a migrant boat carrying 60 people sank, drowning a man and woman both in their 30s. Another body found on a beach several days later may have been another passenger on the same boat.

And in August this year, six Afghans aged 21 to 34 lost their lives after their small boat capsized.

French authorities say that boats are increasingly overloaded, with the average number of about 53 passengers nearly double the average of two years ago.

More than 28,000 people have crossed the Channel since the start of this year, according to British government statistics running to the end of November, compared with almost 46,000 over the whole of last year.

T.Cusumano--INP