A French patrol ship has rescued 217 migrants from three small boats that had run into trouble off the coast of Libya.
The Commandant Birot helped several dozen people in distress and intercepted two suspected people smugglers.
"The intercepted vessels have all been neutralised," the maritime police said.
They added that they were responding to a call from the maritime rescue coordination centre in Rome as part of the European Union's operation Triton.
The rescued migrants and the suspected people smugglers have been handed over to the Italian authorities, the Toulon, France-based maritime police added.
The sea is one of the main routes into the European Union for tens of thousands of mostly Asian and African migrants.
This route has been taken by 40,000 migrants this year already.
A migrant boat sank with the loss of more than 700 lives last month.
This has put pressure on EU countries to step up search and rescue operations in the southern Mediterranean.
