Crisis in Calais

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/opinion/crisis-in-calais.html

Version 0 of 1.

Europe’s ability to accept more refugees is “close to the limits,” warned the European Council president, Donald Tusk, at the G20 meeting on Sunday. For the truck drivers and local citizens who staged a protest on Monday in Calais, France, where the population of a migrant tent camp has swelled to more than 10,000, that limit has been reached.

Calais is a magnet for migrants trying to reach Britain because it is close to the Eurotunnel. Under a 2003 agreement between the two countries, British border control takes place on the French side of the tunnel. With Britain unwilling to take in migrants, the result is a bottleneck in Calais.

A year ago, when the population of the Calais camp had grown to about 5,000, Britain pledged $11 million to beef up security at both ends of the tunnel, and France committed more police officers. This year, the government of President François Hollande had the northern portion of the squalid camp razed, and set up shipping containers to house some migrants.

The camp’s population has doubled since then, and conditions are worse. Migrants are resorting to desperate means to try to get through the Eurotunnel, including attacking trucks bound for Britain so they can clamber on board. The conservative Les Républicains mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, is demanding that Mr. Hollande’s Socialist government send in the army to control the migrants. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who is running for president again, wants to set up a detention center for migrants on British soil, an idea the British promptly rejected. With presidential elections scheduled for spring, Calais has become an anti-immigrant rallying cry for Les Républicains and the far-right National Front party.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve of France promised Friday that the camp will be gone by the end of this year, with migrants transferred to other parts of France. But the details remain vague, and Monday’s protesters want immediate action. This will not be easy. Anti-immigrant fever is on the rise: Early Tuesday, a refugee center set to open next month outside Paris was set on fire.

At the G20 meeting, Mr. Tusk said the rest of the world must step up and do its share on the global refugee crisis. No doubt, an international effort is needed. But it is shameful that Britain and France, two of the wealthiest countries in Europe, have failed to deal humanely with the migrants in Calais.