Volunteers distributing food and water to homeless refugees and migrants in Calais are systematically being harassed and intimidated by French police, according to a report submitted to France’s human rights ombudsman, reports The Guardian.
Four associations working to distribute aid on the northern French coast, including the British group Help Refugees, published a report on Wednesday saying that between November 2017 and July 2018 there were more than 600 incidents of intimidation against volunteers.
These rangedfrom excessive identity checks and police stop and searches to arbitrary parking fines and pat-downs, threats, insults and verbal and physical violence.
The report said there had been 37 incidents of physical violence, including police pushing aid workers to the ground, snatching phones and forcing people away from areas where food was to be handed out.
In some cases British volunteers were being singled out by French police who were preventing them from giving out food and water, the report says. Volunteers with British passport or British vehicles were monitored and prevented from entering an area near Dunkirk on the French coast to distribute meals where refugees and migrants were sleeping rough. They were told “English associations” were not authorised to be there.