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Calais residents: we are not racist but this problem is getting worse Calais residents: we are not racist but this problem is getting worse
(about 2 hours later)
There is a term that sums up how people in Calais feel about the refugee camp known as the “Jungle”: ras-le-bol. Literally it means to have had a bowlful; more generally it means they are fed up. French demonstrators have blocked access to the Channel Tunnel and Calais’s ferry terminal, causing severe transport disruption, to protest at the government’s failure to close the refugee camp known as the “Jungle”.
French lorry drivers and farmers began a protest early on Monday on the A16, converging near the entrance to the Channel tunnel and ferry terminals. They say they will keep up their blockade unless a date is set for dismantling the camp, threatening severe travel disruption in France and the UK. Hauliers who said they had to run the gauntlet of increasingly daring and aggressive attempts by stowaways to get to Britain were joined by farmers, shopkeepers and business owners on the march, which closed the A16 motorway outside the Channel port.
On Monday, residents of Calais joined the protest to say “enough is enough”. A convoy of about 40 lorries and trucks was joined by 50 tractors and several hundred marchers who formed a human chain to converge on the access roads to the tunnel and ferry terminals.
As they walked in a human chain in front of the convoy of lorries and tractors, they spoke of their fear, frustration and anger, but also of their sympathy for the plight of the estimated 7,000 to 10,000 migrants and refugees living in Europe’s biggest and most notorious open-air squat. France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, pledged last week to dismantle the Calais camp, Europe’s biggest and most notorious open-air squat, which is now home to between 7,000 and 10,000 migrants and refugees. Many of them are desperate to reach Britain. The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes to stand again in 2017, called on the British to set up their own holding centre on the other side of the Channel.
“We are not racist and we are not Front National. We understand there is a humanitarian question here, that there are people living in misery, but we are living with incivility and a growing feeling of insecurity,” said Jean-Pierre Clipet, of the FDSEA farmers’ union. But Eric Fiolet, a local haulier and one of the demonstration’s organisers, said the time for talking was over. “It’s action we want, not promises that may or may not be kept. I don’t know of any other industry or any other workers that have to put up with being attacked the way we are every night. Our people risk being hurt or having their lorries, which are their livelihoods, destroyed.”
“And some of the migrants are becoming more and more aggressive. There is a group effect here. But this problem is getting worse.” He added: “Pressure has been building up for three and a half years. We have exhausted all possibility of discussions and negotiations. Today our backs are against the wall.”
People smugglers are reported to be going to extreme lengths in Calais to get people to the UK, with vehicles being torched, petrol bombs thrown and trees being felled to block roads before drivers are threatened with chainsaws and machetes. Over the Channel, the Road Haulage Association (RHA) said lorry drivers would stand their ground until action to dismantle the camp was taken and predicted the traffic chaos in France would have a knock on effect on traffic on Britain’s south coast; however, the Port of Calais said a diversion had been put in place and ferries were operating as normal.
Gangs are paid thousands of pounds by vulnerable people to get them to Calais, from where some are smuggled to Britain to work to pay off huge debts. “This will bring yet further misery to hauliers bound for mainland Europe and of course for the people and businesses of Kent,” RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said. However, he added: “There needs to be a clear plan that shows how the camp is going to be dismantled. Drivers have been attacked on a daily basis for months. And there has been insufficient resource to protect.”
Smugglers have allegedly been causing crashes on the roads to the port by hurling large objects at cars and then stowing away on lorries caught up in the traffic jams that pile up behind. On Monday, farmers, truck drivers and local residents spoke of their growing fear, frustration and anger at the failure of French, British and European politicians to solve Calais’ migrant problem. The term most often used was ras-le-bol; which literally means to have a bowl full, but translates as being fed up.
“Every time they are pushed out of the town, they come to us,” said Clipet. “Getting to England is their goal so if they are stopped one way, they will try another way.” Local officials say tourists now snub the historic Channel town, with long and close links to Britain, because of its association with the human misery and violence of the camp.
Christophe Delacourt, 49, a Eurotunnel maintenance technician, showed photos on his phone of his car windscreen – smashed by angry migrants and refugees, he said. But while Calaisians spoke of being angry and fed up many also had sympathy for the plight of the migrants and refugees in their midst, living in squalor in a shanty town of makeshift tents and plastic shelters.
“I was driving to work last Tuesday morning around 5am when about 20 to 30 of them tried to get on a lorry,” he said. “When it didn’t stop and they failed, they grabbed tree branches and started attacking my car. Of course, I was afraid.” “We are not racist and we are not Front National [the far-right party of Marine Le Pen]. We understand there is a humanitarian question here, that there are people living in misery, but we are living with incivility and a growing feeling of insecurity,” Jean-Pierre Clipet, of the FDSEA farmers’ union, said.
Delacourt said Eurotunnel had advised its employees to take smaller roads to work. People smugglers are reported to be going to extreme lengths in Calais to get people to the UK, with reports of vehicles being torched, petrol bombs thrown and trees being felled to block roads before drivers are threatened with chainsaws and machetes.
Sebastien Fournier, 36, who joined the march on Monday, said his wife was afraid to drive to the supermarket with their young child in the car. Gangs are often paid thousands of pounds by vulnerable people to get them to Calais, from where some are smuggled to Britain.
“She doesn’t dare go to the shopping centre with the baby in the car,” he said. “This isn’t normal. Every day it’s getting worse and worse. We don’t want confrontation with the migrants. We just want to go to work. And it’s sad because it’s turning the local population racist.” Christophe Delacourt, 49, a maintenance technician with EuroTunnel, showed the Guardian photographs on his telephone of his car windscreen - smashed, he said, by angry migrants and refugees.
Ludovic Demol, 45, said he was driving to work at 5am on the A16 two months ago with three colleagues when they stopped at road blocks. “A hundred or so men attacked our car with iron bars and sticks. We got out and ran away. You can imagine how frightened I was,” he said. “I was driving to work at 5am last Tuesday when about 20 to 30 of them tried to get on a lorry. When it didn’t stop and they failed, they grabbed tree branches and started attacking my car. Of course, I was afraid.”
Pressure has been growing on the French authorities to tackle the problems at the camp. Talks took place on Friday between protest organisers and the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, who has promised to gradually dismantle the camp and move asylum seekers to other parts of France. Delacourt said EuroTunnel had advised its employees to take smaller roads to work during the night.
Farmers complain the increased security and ever higher fences around the tunnel and port have only shifted the problem elsewhere; mostly into their fields. Sebastien Fournier, 36, who joined the human-chain march, said his wife was now afraid to drive to the supermarket with their young child in the car.
Those who joined the demonstration spoke of being attacked by stone-throwing young people as they worked on their farms and said they had found migrants and refugees near their homes and outbuildings, or beating a path across their crops. “This isn’t normal. Every day it’s getting worse and worse. We don’t want confrontation with the migrants. We just want to go to work. And it’s sad because it’s turning the local population racist.”
Pierre-Yves, 47, who had come to join the motorway go-slow in his tractor, said: “We are not racist, we are not political, but we are in a situation that is not going away and we’re having difficulty seeing the end, the solution. Farmlands are being squatted, crops damaged, and our turnover is hit. Ludovic Demol, 45, said he was driving to work at 5am on the A16 two months ago with three colleagues when they stopped at roadblocks. “A hundred or so men attacked our car with iron bars and sticks. We got out and ran away. You can imagine how frightened I was.”
Pressure has been growing on the French authorities to tackle the problems at the camp, which has expanded in recent months. Talks took place on Friday between protest organisers and Cazeneuve, who has promised to gradually dismantle the camp and move asylum seekers to other locations in France.
Farmers complain that the migrants make their way back and that dispersing them just shifts the problem elsewhere. Pierre-Yves, 47, who drove one of the tractors blocking the roads said: “We are not racist, we are not political, but we are in a situation that is not going away and we’re having difficulty seeing the end, the solution. Farmlands are being camped on, crops damaged, and our turnover is hit.
“This area has always welcomed migrants. The Polish came to work in the mines, Belgians like my grandmother came to work in the lace industry. But back then there were jobs and work. In the current economic situation, it’s not possible.”“This area has always welcomed migrants. The Polish came to work in the mines, Belgians like my grandmother came to work in the lace industry. But back then there were jobs and work. In the current economic situation, it’s not possible.”
Like many others at the demonstration, Vincent Cocquet, 41, said he feared the growing tension would lead to deaths. “We now confront this problem day after day, night after night and we all fear this is going to finish badly,” he said. “Very badly.” Other farmers fear the increasing violence will lead to tragedy. Vincent Cocquet, 41, said “We now confront this problem day after day, night after night and we all fear this is going to finish badly. Very badly.”
Bertrand Bauy, 50, a cereal and livestock farmer, said: “This will end in a tragedy … Calais used to be a dynamic town, now it is dead. We don’t see people coming here, shopping in the supermarkets like they used to. And it’s the people of Calais who are suffering.” Frédéric Van Gansbeke, president of the Calais business and shop owners collective, said Monday’s action was just a start. “We won’t be moving until the state gives us a date for the total dismantling of the northern zone of the Jungle,” he said.
Frédéric van Gansbeke, the president of the Calais business and shop owners collective, said the action on Monday was a demonstration of the frustration and anger among residents. French authorities have made repeated efforts to shut down the camp, which the state was responsible for creating in April 2015 when authorities evicted migrants and refugees from squats and outdoor camps across the Calais area and concentrated them into one patch of wasteland without shelter. Earlier this year, Calais residents and business leaders sent a delegation to see the president, François Hollande, at the Elysée Palace to demand that the region be declared in a “state of exceptional economic catastrophe”.
“We won’t be moving until the state gives us a date for the total dismantling of the northern zone of the ‘Jungle’,” he said.
Richard Burnett, the chief executive of the UK’s Road Haulage Association (RHA), told the BBC on Monday he backed demands for for the camp to be demolished, but said he was very concerned about the impact of the protest. “If this blockade blocks the port up then it’s going to strangle the port and we are going to see implications back on British soil as well as French,” he said.
But he added: “There needs to be a clear plan that shows how the camp is going to be dismantled. Drivers have been attacked on a daily basis for months. And there has been insufficient resource to protect.”
French authorities have made repeated efforts to shut down the camp, which the state was responsible for creating in April 2015 when authorities evicted migrants and refugees from squats and outdoor camps across the Calais area and concentrated them into one patch of wasteland without shelter.
Earlier this year, Calais residents and business leaders sent a delegation to see the president, François Hollande, at the Elysée Palace to demand that the region be declared in a “state of exceptional economic catastrophe”.
Dismantling the “Jungle” is already high on France’s 2017 presidential election agenda.
On Monday, the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes to stand again in 2017, called on the British to set up their own holding centre on the other side of the Channel.
He told the local paper Nord de Clair that he would go to London the day after an election win to renegotiate Le Touquet, the border agreement between France and the UK. “I want our British friends to take responsibility for the requests of those who want to claim asylum there in a closed centre in Great Britain, and to equally take responsibility for the return of those whose applications are refused,” said Sarkozy. “It’s not on French soil that we should treat cases of demands to enter into British territory.”