French riot police stand guard yesterday as migrants eat their meal during daily food distribution in Calais. The number of illegal immigrants in Calais is now estimated at between 2,220 and 2,300, their numbers boosted by conflict in the Middle East and north Africa.
AFP/Calais
“Fed up” is an expression that comes up again and again in the French port city of Calais where residents are faced with a growing tide of hungry, penniless migrants sleeping rough.
Whether fleeing wars or repression, hundreds of asylum-seekers have trekked across Europe to the northern city over the past months, camping out in flimsy tents as they wait for an opportunity to cross the Channel and complete their final journey to Britain.
Up to 2,300 migrants are thought to be in Calais and surrounding areas, overwhelming security forces as they make regular attempts to mob the port en masse to try and scramble onto trucks boarding ferries to Britain.
“We don’t recognise our city anymore,” said Ludivine, the 32-year-old employee of a clothes store in the centre. “There are less and less people on the streets. Since the summer, it has really gone downhill.”
Laurent Roussel, a bar owner and opposition councillor, said the situation was “very, very, very serious”.
“There’s a lot of discussion, a lot of chat here and there, but nothing is changing and Calais residents are fed up. Really, really fed up,” he said.
This week, police resorted to tear gas to break up acrimonious fights among migrants, sealing off an industrial zone where many had sought refuge in an incident that prompted emergency reinforcements to be sent to the city, where riot police are now patrolling the centre.
Adding to the general unrest, a 16-year-old Ethiopian girl was killed on Monday night after being hit by a car while crossing a motorway in the area, police said.
Like many others in the city, Ali, a migrant from Afghanistan, sees Britain as an El Dorado with good employment opportunities.
“We want to go to England because we don’t have a job,” he said, a black and white scarf wrapped over his head to keep the chill out.
Many migrants also have family or people they know in Britain.
But the situation has reached boiling-point as the number of migrants rises rapidly.
The reason?
“There’s the good sailing season when the weather is a bit better, which peaks in the summer,” says Leonard Doyle, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration. “And if they landed in the Mediterranean, by now they have arrived in places like Calais. This has also been a particularly bad time with the chaos in Libya and conflicts in Syria and Iraq.”
The sheer number of migrants from Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and other countries has sparked tensions between different nationalities, led to battles for control of areas where they sleep rough and to a rise in petty theft.
“We’re faced with a large number of young, single men who have come from the Horn of Africa on their own, who roam around town and are ready to do anything to get to England,” said Frederic Van Gansbeke, the head of a trade association.
Roussel used to help migrants charge their mobiles in his bar. “At the beginning, it was friendly, I would have a chat with them. But now there are too many and they’re in every district, drinking more alcohol on the streets than before.”
The influx has also given rise to anti-immigration sentiment, and yesterday far-right leader Marine Le Pen visited Calais, a 75,000-strong city she described as having been abandoned.
“We are not taking stock of the population’s despair ... we must regain control of our borders,” she said.
The problem in Calais is not new – illegal camps of migrants have sprung up in the area ever since French authorities closed down the infamous Sangatte immigrant detention centre in 2002.
This former hangar run by the French Red Cross used to be home to a perpetually renewing population of migrants – many of them Afghans and Iraqi Kurds who hoped to sneak through the Channel tunnel to Britain.
The centre had been a thorn in the side of British and French ties and was eventually demolished.
But Calais Mayor Natacha Bouchart warned on Thursday that “managing the situation is not possible anymore”.
Claude Gareau, a local resident, pointed out that when the Sangatte centre was still operational, the migrants had somewhere to go. “But now what’s going to happen? They’re here and there, winter is coming. It’s going to be hell.”
Charities are working to help migrants with food handouts, but they too are overwhelmed.
Authorities have announced they will open a day facility to allow migrants access to healthcare, toilets and bathrooms, but appear to have so far ruled out any permanent 24-hour centre.