In French Port City, ‘a Real Psychosis’
CALAIS, France — Charles Dufeutrelle used to donate medicine and clothes to
the occasional migrant from Afghanistan who came in for coffee at La
Gauloise, the bar he owns in Calais, the port city in northern France that
has long been a gateway to Britain.
By
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/world/europe/in-french-port-city-calais-a
-real-psychosis.html> MAĻA de la BAUME
Oct. 26, 2014
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But after a migrant broke into the bar in 2012, Mr. Dufeutrelle, 31, bought
a Taser and pepper spray, which he keeps in a drawer near the cash register.
And when a group of migrants refused to leave the bar when he asked them to,
he pulled out his hunting rifle to scare them away.
That time, the rifle was not loaded, Mr. Dufeutrelle said — but “next time,
I will not hesitate to shoot.”
His frustration reflects the resentment and fear that have swept Calais in
the last year, along with a new wave of migrants hoping to cross illegally
to Britain, which they see as a better place than France to start a new
life. The migrants began squatting in vacant buildings and took over
shelters in the city center, angering residents and drawing warnings from
the local authorities that they could lose control of portions of the city.
Many people here fear devastating repercussions for Calais, which is already
suffering from 16 percent unemployment, one of the highest rates in France.
Anti-migrant sentiment here has buoyed far-right groups like the National
Front party, whose support surged in elections for the European Parliament
this past spring.
The National Front’s leader, Marine Le Pen, visited Calais on Friday to
denounce what she called the “scandalous carelessness” of the government in
a city where “there is nothing left but survival of the fittest, violence.”
Her visit followed unrest in the city on Wednesday, when fights broke out
between rival ethnic groups among the migrants and some tried to force their
way onto Britain-bound trucks, prompting riot police to step in. Last month,
four young Calais residents threw improvised firebombs at a building
occupied by Egyptian migrants in the city center.
“The discontent has turned into a real psychosis,” said Emmanuel Agius, the
deputy mayor of Calais and a member of the conservative Union for a Popular
Movement party. “The migrants of today no longer fear breaking the laws.”
Tensions started to build in Calais more than a decade ago, in 2002, when a
Red Cross center in nearby Sangatte was closed down and migrants started to
camp around the port instead. The police have dismantled some camps, but the
migrants have rebuilt them in new locations.
The local authorities estimate that there are 2,200 to 2,300 migrants around
the city now, mostly men who have fled from Afghanistan, Egypt, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Sudan or, most recently, Syria. They wait along the highway
leading to the waterfront, hoping to hide in a ferry-bound truck and sneak
into Britain. Many of them speak some English and believe they can
assimilate better there than in France, even though the British government
is adamant about not accepting them.
Britain has called on France to do more to stop the migrants, but “we can’t
control them anymore,” said Gilles Debove, a local police officer and a
member of the main police union.
About 100 migrants forced their way into Calais’s port last month by tearing
down barbed-wire fences. After violence flared this week, the French
interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said 100 more police officers would be
sent to Calais.
Mr. Debove said migrants in the city took over vacant buildings, stole money
and cellphones from residents, fought among themselves and sometimes
sexually assaulted local women. He said 80 crimes had been reported in the
city this summer involving migrants, up from six a year ago.
In July, hundreds of migrants supported by No Border, an advocacy group,
occupied a former metal factory less than a mile from City Hall. At least
100 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants filled the factory one recent day,
sleeping on cardboard mats, burning discarded tennis shoes for heat and
tapping old water pipes to wash their faces. The floor was littered with
empty potato-chip bags and puddles of rainwater from a broken skylight.
“I tried more than 10 times to get inside a truck, but you can die,” said
Hassan Abdallah, 30, who said he had fled the Darfur region of Sudan several
months ago and crossed the Mediterranean in a fishing boat. “There are no
other solutions for us,” he said. “The conditions in which we live force us
to do that. You hide, and you think about God.”
Many residents say the situation has left them feeling stressed. Some women
say they avoid walking alone in Calais at night. Bar owners say they lost
business from local residents after migrants began coming in to charge their
phones and use the restrooms.
Sylvie Cambie, who owns a bar called Aux Deux Moineaux, said her sales had
fallen by half since Sudanese migrants moved into a shelter nearby. “When my
customers see them, they walk away,” Mrs. Cambie said. “I don’t want them, I
can’t stand them, and that has nothing to do with racism.”
Philippe Langlois, a guard at the city’s main cemetery, said he had gone
into a rage last year when migrants occupied a small plot of land he had
bought years ago. “I burned their blankets and made them leave,” Mr.
Langlois said. He also padlocked the cemetery restrooms after he saw groups
of migrants from a nearby camp using them.
Calais had plenty of problems before the migrants came. A mainstay industry,
lacemaking, is in decline, and the city’s biggest employer, the SeaFrance
ferry line, went into liquidation in 2012. Though the city is still one of
the busiest ports in Europe, traffic has been diminishing, and officials say
it could fall further if the migrant problem is not solved.
The situation has also angered many truck drivers, who can be fined $3,200
if they are found to have carried an illegal migrant into Britain, even
unwittingly. Last month, some of them threatened to stop delivering goods to
England unless the French authorities find a solution.
“If we continue on this path, the city will experience ruin,” said Mr.
Agius, the deputy mayor.
The mayor has offered to turn an old community center into a shelter that
would house more than 1,000 migrants, and France and Britain have announced
plans to strengthen security at the port. But Mr. Dufeutrelle, the bar
owner, said he did not think these steps would solve the real problem.
“We need to tell these poor souls that England is no longer an El Dorado,”
he said.
Received on Sun Oct 26 2014 - 07:59:03 EDT