Chris Philp said a French patrol boat fired 17 shots near the boat he was on in the Channel while he was being interviewed by the on Tuesday. He said the firing came as the French navy vessel Flamant passed a couple of miles off Boulogne.
Philp uploaded video of the incident to X and said: "There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation." The exchange placed a French navy patrol, a British MP, and a live interview in the same frame.
Chris Philp says French patrol boat fired 17 shots during interview Michael Keohan described it as "the most unusual moment … in the quiet of the Channel" and said he saw a French patrol officer at the back of the boat pointing a pistol toward the sea, which he believed was where the shots came from.
Matt Coker on the firing
Matt Coker, the captain of the fishing boat, said: "It’s a bit strange that as they approached us there wasn’t fire or anything and then as they went past, afterwards there wasn’t fire or anything". He added: "So it sounds like it might have been an effort to intimidate us."
Coker also said: "It could well have been, it might have just been a little bit of a warning shot. Maybe just a show of force or something." His account matches the basic mechanical split in the story: warning shots are meant to signal, while a training drill uses blanks and a formal setup; Philp said neither warning nor training notice was given.
French navy response
Philp said the officer was aiming away from him, while Keohan said: "There was no warning for our boat, no signs given that this was the French intention. Even now it’s still not clear what the patrol boat was aiming at." Those accounts leave two practical possibilities in the frame: a deliberate signal fired toward the sea, or a routine exercise carried out without notice to the people on the boat.
The French embassy and the French coastguard were approached for comment. For readers trying to judge the incident, the next step is simple: the difference between blanks, live rounds, and an exercise is what separates a routine naval drill from a shot that could be read as intimidation.
