A video apparently showing police in Calais beating and firing tear gas at migrants who were seeking to board lorries bound for Britain has sparked an inquiry by France’s national police watchdog, reports The Telegraph.
Calais Migrant Solidarity (CMS), a local migrant aid association, released the video on Monday, alleging it documented a clear case of police brutality towards migrants, hundreds of whom seek to hide daily in lorries or cars as they queue up to board UK-bound ferries at the northern French port.
Police unions say they have no option but to use force when migrants from a string of war-torn countries, including Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, Sudan and Somalia, refuse to leave vehicles and outnumber them.
The video, an edit of several different incidents, was shot on May 5th – the day after French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve visited a recently opened migrant day centre on the outskirts of Calais.
CMS said the film made a mockery of Mr Cazeneuve’s claim that “Calais is a laboratory of the best the French Republic can produce” and that police action was “bearing fruit”.
The two-minute film shot at long range appears to show French anti-riot police hauling migrants out of the backs of lorries or approaching those loitering around vehicles, then pushing them over a security barrier, and in some instances hitting and kicking them. Others are dispersed with tear gas and in one case, an officer pins a migrant to the ground with his knee.
“When three police officers open a lorry and find five migrants inside who don’t want to leave, how do you want to get them out?” he asked, denying that tear gas was used.
Police are now resorting to buying GoPro cameras to show they had acted “in good faith”, he said.
Mr Debove said that only last night, his colleagues had to deal with 400 migrants “storming lorries at the Eurotunnel entrance”.
“We had to call in reinforcements from nearby Boulogne-sur-mer and our colleagues had to stay there until 6.30am this morning. At 9am, I was told around 50 migrants were still present, some armed with iron bars.”
This is not the first time police in Calais have been accused of violence towards migrants. In January, Human Rights Watch, the NGO, accused police of mistreating migrants after conducting interviews with 44 asylum seekers.
France’s national police headquarters, DGPN, said its internal watchdog had launched an inquiry into the allegations of police violence in the video.
“The precise circumstances of this intervention will be examined very soon,” a police source told AFP. “Any clear violation of the code of conduct will be sanctioned,” he said.
However, Gilles Dobove of the police union Unité SGP-Police FO, said: “You have to put these images into context.” The number of lorries had multiplied due to a series of public holidays in France, he said.“This wasn’t just any ordinary day. There were around 2,000 lorries in the sector between the tunnel and the port,” he said. “Hundreds and hundreds of migrants stormed the lorries.”
Read more of this report (with the video) from The Telegraph.