Many are undeterred by the English Channel tragedy and will continue to attempt the crossing

ITV News Correspondent Rachel Younger was in France as she spoke to refugees about why they are so desperate to cross to the UK

Just after it got light we watched as a group of around 25 young men and a couple of women were rounded up by police.

Some were still wearing red life jackets, many were soaked to the skin, all of them looked exhausted.

We’d seen three or four police vans and a number of ambulances rush towards the railway station where the group were trying to get on a train.

In the cold and rain, and surrounded by police, none of them wanted to talk. But it was clear they had tried and failed to get across the channel, just hours after yesterday’s tragic deaths in the same waters.

Watch as men who had been hoping to cross the English Channel arrive at a train station soaked through - some still wearing red life jackets

For the people of Calais, watching lines of bedraggled men, women and children make their way back to makeshift camps in the surrounding woodlands is nothing new.

What is different today is the reaction of the French authorities who regularly look the other way.

This was a deliberate show of authority with police out in force in the very centre of town.

Marguerite Combes, who works for Utopia 56, a humanitarian aid group, told me how unusual it was to see anyone stopped or offered help by the authorities.

“Taking them to hospital or to accommodation - that never happens. It’s only because a light is now being shone on what’s happening in Calais” she said.

But she wasn’t surprised at all that the desperate men and women we watched were ready to risk their lives again so soon.

“They have very hard living conditions here. Moved on by police every day, it’s very difficult to get food, water and showers and it’s really cold now.

"We need help. Or we will relive this situation a lot of times this winter and it will be terrible, unless something changes.”