Squalor in Calais despite court victory

▶ Government ordered to improve facilities for migrants but action has been delayed

A pledge by the French authorities to improve the squalid living conditions of migrants in Calais has been delayed because of a shortage of mobile shower units during grape-picking season, refugee groups said yesterday.

France’s top administrative court last month ordered the government to install toilets and washing facilities for hundreds of migrants living rough in the northern city after criticising their “inhuman or degrading” treatment.

Local officials met the agencies on Thursday and promised to provide water trucks and toilets, but no showers before the end of the month.

Some of the equipment “is not available because of the grape picking in the south of France,” said Francois Guennoc, vice president of L’Auberge des Migrants in Calais, who was at the meeting.

Ten months after the French authorities razed a camp known as the “Jungle” that was home to about 9,000 migrants, local agencies say about 1,000 people have returned to the area in the past few months as they seek to end their long journeys in the United Kingdom.

Several informal camps have become home to the migrants – mainly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea and Ethiopia – in industrial parks, scrubland and underneath road bridges, where they rely on daily handouts of food, clothing and medical treatment.

Voluntary agencies have reported a surge in scabies, a tickborne skin condition, as they cannot provide enough clean clothes for the migrants.

“If we have to go for a shower, we go over there,” said Ahmed Abdullah, an Iraqi Kurd, pointing to a small lake close to an informal camp where more than 100 migrants are sleeping rough at Dunkirk, 40 kilometres from Calais. “It’s very cold.”

The local and national authorities have baulked at providing permanent facilities, concerned that it might encourage others to the area. The mayor of Calais had vowed to ignore the July 31 court ruling before she was overruled by senior officials.

Charities said the offer on Thursday showed that authorities were only prepared to do what was needed to avoid falling foul of the law.

Even when the showers are installed, the authorities say they can be used by only the most vulnerable – the sick, the elderly, families, children and women.

With the bulk of the migrant camps populated by young men, Mr Guennoc said only one in 10 would be eligible for a shower.

“They are trying to do the bare minimum,” he said.

The number of migrants in the area has been swollen in the past week by those travelling from Paris and other parts of France for buses that take them to reception centres to claim asylum, Mr Guennoc said.

“They wouldn’t let animals live like this,” said a young migrant. “We don’t want to cause trouble. We just want a better life.”