It was after talks with interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve and his officials, together with housing minister Emmanuelle Cosse, earlier this week that representatives of the major NGOs that provide medical and material assistance to the thousands of migrants living in appalling conditions in “the Jungle” camp in Calais withdrew their earlier support for the French government’s plan to evacuate the shantytown.
Late on Wednesday, 11 of the organizations applied to a court in Lille, close to Calais, for a court order to prevent the evacuation, arguing that it would represent “a violation of the fundamental rights of the exiled”. The court is due to render its decision within 48 hours.
While the local authorities estimate the population of the notorious camp to number between 5,600 and 6,500, the NGO’s estimate the true figure to be somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000, of which 1,300 are unaccompanied minors.
The migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan, are concentrated in Calais in the hope of finding a clandestine route into Britain mainly by hiding in trucks or riding trains through the Channel Tunnel. Dozens have died in the process. For years, the crisis in Calais has strained Anglo-French relations, with London happy to leave the French authorities to deal with containing the clandestine attempts to cross the Channel.
Under firm pressure from France, when interior minister Cazeneuve called on Britain to take up its “moral duty”, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd earlier this week promised to speed up the processing of cases of unaccompanied minors in the camp who have the right to join family members in Britain. However, she commented that if only 300 were allowed into Britain “that would be a really good result”. The fate of the hundreds of minors to be displaced by the evacuation is of major concern to the NGOs.
The migrants’ presence in Calais is the subject of increasing tensions with the local population and in the run up to the French presidential election campaign the issue has become a political and diplomatic hot potato, and a focal point of anti-migrant rhetoric, including during visits to the port by political leaders.
One of France’s major charitable organizations, Le Secours Catholique, which has long been present in “the Jungle” to provide assistance to the migrants, this week said it would not lend its support to the planned forceful evacuation which it said represented a “nauseating electoral upping of the ante”.
No date has been announced for the imminent evacuation, although French news channel LCI reported that an internal police order for the mission has mobilised 19 riot police squadrons to begin the operation on October 17th. The evacuation is to be followed by a razing of the land and the dismantling of temporary shelters, in the form of modified shipping containers, which were provided by the authorities.
On September 29th, several NGOs, including Le Secours Catholique, the international medical care organization Médecins du Monde, and L’Auberge des Migrants, co-signed a letter addressed to President François Hollande in which they announced their conditional support for the evacuation, which had been presented to them in a briefing by Cosse and Cazeneuve.
“We have made known to the ministers that our associations would support such a plan, and could accompany it, if all measures allowing for the protection and respect of fundamental rights of these people were guaranteed,” they wrote. “You yourself travelled to the site and you reaffirmed the will of the state to find a dignified and effective solution to this humanitarian drama.”
But the NGOs insisted that existing accommodation centres for some of the migrants in Calais remained in place in order to continue to provide a “humane and dignified solution to the very complex situation of those exiled persons who want - whatever their motivation – to reach Great Britain from Calais”.
But this week, after their latest meeting with the housing and interior ministers, the NGOs withdrew that support after learning more detail about the manner in which the evacuation will be mounted. Following that meeting, but before their application on Wednesday evening for a court order to annul the operation, Mediapart interviewed Christian Salomé, president of the association L’Auberge des Migrants, to ask him the reasons for the U-turn.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
In the interview below with Carine Fouteau, he dismissed what he described as an ill-prepared and forceful plan of evacuation, which he believes is in danger of turning into violence and which will only ultimately exacerbate the problem. Above all, he says, the only real solution to the crisis in Calais “lies in the opening of the border with Britain”.
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(Where appropriate, editor’s explanatory notes appear in italics between hard brackets).
MEDIAPART: Why do you now place in question the support you initially gave in September for the dismantling of the migrants’ camp in Calais?
Christian Salomé: As we learn, stage by stage, how the government intends going about it, we realise that we disagree about the method employed. The project to dismantle the camp is legitimate. It is unthinkable to wish that people continue to live in such conditions. It is intolerable that the current situation should continue. But the method chosen by the state is not adapted for the purpose. The operation that looms ahead threatens to be more a policing one than humane. Certainly, the refugees are led to accommodation centres, but why resort to so many police when there are already 2,000 on site, and another 6,000 are awaited?
The government wants to move fast. That’s a mistake. Things should have been organised in a much more progressive manner. Departures are planned for every Tuesday and Thursday. Nearly 200 migrants gather on each occasion to try and leave, whereas there are just 20 or so places. It’s a waste. Also, we cannot accept that the accommodation in "the Jungle" built from solid material be destroyed, as announced by [French president] François Hollande during his visit [to Calais] on September 26th. These 2,000 places in the provisional accommodation centre, and at the Jules-Ferry centre, are a minimum. To completely destroy the shantytown would represent a dramatic step backwards. More precisely, it will take us back to 2002, to the closing of [the former nearby accommodation centre at] Sangatte by [then-interior minister] Nicolas Sarkozy, the consequence of which was the creation of numerous small camps around the site.”
MEDIAPART: The government insists that it would be nothing like 2002, because the people are sent to accommodation centres.
C.S.: Yes, except that most of them will return and there will be nothing left. The containers [installed by the authorities within 'the Jungle' as makeshift accommodation] were not very welcoming, but it was better than nothing. If the state destroys everything, the migrants will leave for migrant accommodation centres, then those who want to reach England will come back and find refuge in the public parks, under the bridges, in the ditches. It will be worse than before. Indeed, we’ve planned for having 600 tents as well as tarpaulin covers to protect individuals who find themselves totally destitute.
The [government’s] plan is conceived for those who want to stay in France, meaning a minority, not for those who are in transit. Whereas in Calais, it’s like it is and it will always be like that, where migrants who want to go to Britain gather. To definitively empty "the Jungle", the government is ready to do anything, including placing pressure on the exiles so that they request asylum on [French] territory. It’s a paradox.
MEDIAPART: In June 2015, the French medical care NGO, Médecins du Monde, urged the opening in Calais of a refugee camp that met international standards. Do you regret that such a camp, occupying the whole of the rough ground area where "the Jungle" is situated, was never created?
C.S.: The solution lies in the opening of the border with Britain. The free circulation between France and Belgium has never prompted a massive transfer of people, and nobody is in danger of dying. The issue is purely political and electoral. Meanwhile, a camp built of solid material would have been the best solution. At any rate, the most adapted to the needs of refugees heading for England.
MEDIAPART: How are the migrants organising themselves with regard to the dismantling of the camp?
C.S.: Some don’t want to be taken by force into accommodation centres, either because they want to continue on with their journey, or because they are afraid to be the object, as set out by European regulations, of a deportation to the European Union country from which they arrived [in France]. Those ones have already returned to Paris, while waiting for things to calm down in Calais, or have joined other camps along the Channel coast. It would appear also that the [clandestine cross-Channel] passages are speeding up. The authorities are being slack, to help empty "the Jungle". This could involve about 50 people per day, representing about 1,000 over three weeks.
Some have also given up trying to reach Britain. They are impatient for the coaches to arrive, to climb aboard and to finish with the shantytown. Finally, it is possible that the police operation pushes the undecided to follow along with the movement. At the first journey stop of a coach, if they have regrets, they will get off and retrace their route. Many don’t really know what they’ll do. They are war refugees, they live day-to-day. They are already happy to have escaped bombings or repression and to be in a country at peace. If they are chased somewhere else, they’ll go somewhere else.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
MEDIAPART: At what moment will screening begin between the ones and the others?
C.S.: Because no precise diagnostic has been made in advance, it appears impossible during the evacuation to orientate people on the basis of their profiles and their needs. Even allowing for just three minutes for every interview, given that there are 2,000 people to move per day that comes to 100 hours of interviews daily. That represents lots of personnel, so the screening will be carried out on their arrival in the accommodation centres.
MEDIAPART: Do those migrants whose fingerprints were recorded in another European Union member state run the risk of being sent back to it?
C.S.: We have obtained the oral assurance from the Ministry of the Interior that those people who are what is called “Dublined” [a reference to the EU Dublin Regulation under which asylum requests are to be processed by the member-state through which the refugee first entered the EU zone, as recorded by his or her fingerprints] would not be the subject of deportation [back to the EU country from where they arrived in France]. We will see if the promise is kept. We are vigilant over another issue: will the government multiply the placements in administrative detention centres and expulsion orders in order to close “the Jungle”? We’ll see.
MEDIAPART: What are the risks involved with this type of large-scale operation?
C.S.: In this kind of situation, it has happened that people set fire to their huts. But the principal danger comes from the CRS [crowd and riot control police] who are sometimes brutal with the refugees, and who will arrive there as if it were a country at war. I have difficulty in seeing how it can proceed in calm.
MEDIAPART: How does the state intend to ensure continuity with the care of the migrants?
C.S.: Nothing is really planned for. To make up for this shortfall, the associations, for their part, are trying to put in place a nationwide system that allows for keeping contact, to retrieve the case files and to ensure a follow-up, for example with sick individuals and refugees who have enrolled with universities.
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- The original text of this interview conducted in French can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse