Stop Calais bulldozers!

Submitted by Matthew on 5 October, 2016 - 10:53 Author: Rosalind Robson

At the end of September, French President Francois Hollande announced that the refugee camp Calais would be demolished. The latest indications are that this will be completed by the end of October.

Hollande had the temerity to call this wholesale eviction and scattering of more than 10,000 people, including over 700 children, a “humanitarian effort”. It is anything but.

A determination to resist the eviction was highlighted by a protest on Saturday 1 October, organised by the Coalition Internationale des Sans Papiers et Migrant (CISPM) — a group of activists, who support migrants and refugees in France.

Why would migrants resist, some might ask; conditions in the Calais camp are appalling. For many, or most, Calais is a staging post to a better life once they reach the UK. On the protest migrants held up the Union Jack indicating this desire.

And why not? Is this not the same desire all of us who already live on this island? The only difference between most of us and migrants in Calais is we have not fled unsafe lives or walked across continents to be here.

If migrants want to come to the UK, they should be allowed to do so. Now instead they face violence, expulsion and possibly deportation.

Police used tear gas and water cannon against the protesters on 1 October. The demolition of the camp will be much worse. There will be water canons, tear gas, rubber bullets and, according to solidarity activists, laser cannons, a weapon developed for use against Somali pirates. Many people will scatter, others will try to stay. Whatever happens, the bulldozers will be sent in.

Hollande says Calais migrants will be sent to “welcome centres” across France. The bigger charities are asking for assurance that this accommodation will be provided; they may help with the operation. But this approach is wrong in principle and also naive.

Even if it is credible, and it seems unlikely, that the French government has 10,000 places for Calais residents, many want to stay where they are.

What is to become of the 350 or so children who now have the right enter, but have still to be allowed into, the UK (under the Lord Dubs amendement)? The act of dispersing people is likely to disrupt their ability to be reunited with their families.

What are these “welcome centres”? Will they be like the closed detention centres now at refugee “hot spots” in Greece? As in Greece, detention centres, could be staging posts in a deportation operation.

Europe’s attitude to migrants is rapidly hardening. Stronger borders and deportation are the beginning and end points of migration policy.

It is no surprise that as Hollande’s government prepares to evict the Calais residents, the EU has signed an agreement with the Afghan government allowing its member states to deport an unlimited number of the country’s asylum seekers. The largest group of the people in Calais are Afghans.
Labour movements and solidarity activists in Europe must resist this urgent threat to migrants at Calais and step up solidarity efforts.

In doing so we assert that in a country like the UK and elsewhere in Europe there is more than enough wealth to provide a decent life for everyone.

We demand the freedom of movement for all, the right of migrants to stay in a country of their choice, the right to work, and the right of families to be reunited.

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