France is backing away from a recent commitment to intervene more forcefully at sea to stop small boats from crossing the English Channel, according to multiple sources contacted by the BBC.
There is evidence that France's current political turmoil is partly to blame, but it will come as a blow to the UK government's attempts to tackle the issue.
In the meantime, dangerously overcrowded inflatable boats continue to leave the coast on an almost daily basis from a shallow tidal canal near the port of Dunkirk.
While the man in charge of border security in the UK, Martin Hewitt, has already expressed frustration at French delays, the BBC has now heard from a number of sources in France that promises of a new maritime doctrine - which would see patrol boats attempt to intercept inflatable boats and pull them back to shore – are hollow.
It's just a political stunt. It's much blah-blah, said one figure closely linked to French maritime security.
The maritime prefecture for the Channel told the BBC that the new doctrine on taxi-boats was still being studied.
Former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau was widely credited, not least in the UK, with driving a more aggressive approach in the Channel.
That culminated last July with a summit between President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The focus then was on plans to intercept the so-called taxi boats now used by the smugglers to cruise close to the coastline, collecting passengers already standing in the water.
French police rarely intervene against the overcrowded taxi-boats since it's considered too great a risk to both officers and civilians.
But days before the summit, we witnessed French police wading into the sea to slash the sides of a taxi-boat as it got caught in the waves and drifted close to shore.
In London, the prime minister's spokesman reacted immediately to our footage, calling it a really significant moment and proof that the French were already starting to take tougher action to stop the small boats on shore and, potentially, at sea.
But since then, Retailleau has lost his job as minister in the latest of several chaotic reshuffles, and a distracted French government appears to be focused on other crises.
A marine expert, who asked us not to use their name due to their close ties to the state, said the Canal de L'Aa was shallow enough for security forces to intervene without putting people's lives at serious risk.
Other canals and rivers in the area have sometimes been blocked by ropes or chains, but these have often proved ineffective against the highly adaptive smuggling gangs.
While French politics has clearly played a role in frustrating British government attempts to slow down the number of small-boat crossings, legal and moral issues are also proving crucial.
Even the less ambitious idea of giving the French police more legal latitude to intervene from the beaches and go deeper into the water has been rejected.
Current rules allow French police and firefighters to intervene only to rescue people who appear to be in imminent danger.
As the migrant boats continue to leave France, volunteer rescue crews along the northern coastline are left grappling with the moral implications of their roles, all while expressing exasperation with the French government's lack of decisive action against smugglers.
