Migrants hurl stones at French riot police in anger after officers slash and deflate dinghies being prepared for English Channel crossings

The group clashed with police in the village of Gravelines near Dunkirk after hundreds of migrants headed to the area on Friday.

Public officers from the French CRS - the general reserve of the French National Police - slashed and deflated at least two of the migrants' rubber dinghies before they could launch, according to GB News.

Frustrated, migrants began to throw stones and tree branches at the officers, who used the riot control agent CS spray.

There are around 6,000 makeshift camps in the Dunkirk area, reported GB News.

The broadcaster said the majority of the migrants in the area are young men, although there are one or two women and children.

The clash is a result of a new police presence across the French coast between Dunkirk and Calais, ahead of an expected announcement of a new channel security deal between the UK and France.

The UK has agreed to pay an extra £60million to help authorities bolster the security presence along the French coast.

Large numbers of small boats were expected to launch this weekend after poor weather put a stop to all channel crossings since October 31.

Groups were pictured in the early hours of Saturday at Border Force facilities in Dover, Kent, for the first time in a fortnight.

Families and women with young children were among those pictured disembarking from Border Force vessels, after being picked up from the Channel.

t comes as Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under increasing pressure to get a grip on the crisis, with huge backlogs in processing asylum claims and horrific conditions reported at migrant detention centres.

Ms Braverman told the House of Commons last month that the UK's asylum system is 'broken'.

It has been revealed that the Home Office deported 350 people in October, more than 100 of whom were Albanian nationals.

The figure included 22 people who arrived after crossing the Channel in small boats and were removed directly from Manston processing centre in Kent.

Ms Braverman said the removals would 'send a clear message' to people she says have no right to be in the UK.

Those deported in October included a Jamaican rapist who was sentenced to 14 years in jail, an Albanian jailed for more than nine years for violent crime and a Malaysian murderer who had received a life sentence.

Of the 347 people returned during October, 118 were to Albania, 39 to Brazil, 38 to Romania, 26 to Poland and 20 to Lithuania, the Home Office revealed. The majority - 230 - had previously committed offences in their own countries.

But the remaining 117 were immigration offenders including two people who were removed within 24 days of arriving by small boat across the Channel. A third was sent back within 27 days of arrival.

Almost 7,000 people arrived in the UK via small boat crossings in October, many of whom are vulnerable asylum seekers.

There are rising tensions in Dover as Manston processing centre, designed to hold 1,600 people for around 24 hours for processing, was revealed to be housing 4,000 people, including families who had been sleeping on floors for up to 30 days.