Man the barricades (and BBQs)
Fed up with the nightly anarchy of the migrant ‘Jungle’ camp, the people of Calais are fighting back with a VERY French revolution
People are cheerfully lighting fires — in broad daylight — on both carriageways of one of the busiest motorways in europe. But there isn’t the tiniest prospect of an arrest, despite the heavy police presence.
I even spot a group of motorcycle cops sharing a plate of merguez sausages, freshly grilled over a smashed-up freight pallet blazing away on the hard shoulder.
But then, it would be hard to break up a demonstration which appears to have unanimous local support. For this is not your traditional traffic blockade by a bolshy French trade union.
The entire resident population of Calais is represented here — workers, bosses, dockers, lorry drivers, farmers, cross-party politicians, pensioners, young mums.
I even meet a furious deputation of duck-hunters. Their message is succinct and aimed at the French government: the time has come for the vast migrant camp, known as ‘the Jungle’, to be dismantled.
even Brits stranded in the chaos — some for up to eight hours — are sympathetic.
‘We’re not extremists and this protest is not against the migrants themselves,’ says philippe Mignonet, deputy mayor of Calais. ‘But enough is enough.’
All say that the French government, which has said it intends to shut the camp, must now fix a date before the increasingly aggressive level of confrontation gets any worse.
By last night, after long talks at the local prefecture, there was no further news, although the protesters were starting to lift the blockade for the night, pending a decision on what to do next.
of Calais’s other population — the estimated 10,000 would-be stowaways dreaming of Britain — there is no sign. They have been ‘strongly advised’ to remain in their tents and shacks for the day. And they do so.
The protesters have come in opposite directions along the A16 motorway, which runs around Calais, to meet at the main turn-off for the Channel Tunnel and block it. This is merely Day one of what could be a protracted campaign.
Several hundred are on foot, followed by many more in fleets of tractors, vans and lorries. Many are in ‘I love Calais’ T- shirts. Many are in hi-viz work clothing, including several p&o ferry staff in company anoraks.
There are angry union leaders here — ‘The situation is a nonsense,’ says Sebastian Rivera of truck drivers’ union, FNTR — and angry executives, too. Antoine Ravisse, shipping agent and president of a coalition of local businesses, warns that the Jungle has now become a haven for the mafia and anarchist groups.
‘It’s unacceptable that today, in France, you can’t travel without the certainty that you won’t be attacked,’ he says. ‘We apologise to our British friends — our economy depends very much on the business we do with england.’
While today’s demonstration is symbolic — there is no attempt to obstruct back roads to the tunnel, nor to seal off the port of Calais — the threat is explicit: this is just for show. Wait until we mean business.
AND with the motorway blocked in both directions, the demonstrators erect a half-mile chain of braziers, bonfires and barbecues. Whereupon, this being France, thoughts turn, inevitably, to lunch.
For seven years, the people of Calais have watched a patch of sandy wasteland to the east of the old cross-Channel hoverport evolve from an impromptu campsite into a sprawling shanty town.
It is now a squalid and increasingly lawless home to thousands of asylum seekers, economic migrants and people smugglers who have crossed continents in order to find a covert way in to Great Britain.
And Calais feels that it has reached breaking point. This is, in part, because recent security improvements around the port and Channel Tunnel have actually worked. Now, ‘ les clandestines’ can no longer loiter around entry points to the main freight terminals waiting to hop inside the trailer of a dozy truck driver. So the battleground has spread further afield. In the process, the migrants have become more desperate. A popular strategy now is to chuck debris in the road to cause a late-night traffic jam far beyond the security cordon and then pile into Channel-bound vehicles.
It’s a tactic which nearly killed a Mail on Sunday reporting team last week when a log was thrown at their car, forcing it in to the path of a juggernaut. local residents say they are afraid to drive in some areas after dark. Farmers, too, say, they have had enough.
‘They tore down my fences for firewood and so my animals escaped,’ says the leader of the tractor-driving posse, Xavier Foissey. ‘They chop down trees to block the roads, which is as dangerous to them as anyone else. And they damage the crops hiding in there every night waiting for the lorries. I have lost €300,000 this year.’
Theft is on the up, I am told. But what has hurt the town most is the damage to its reputation.
passing trade has collapsed because the millions of people — mainly Brits — who used to stop off here for a meal or a booze cruise no longer bother. These days, they put their foot down. That is what is at the root of this demonstration.
The word I hear most frequently is ‘catastrophe’. ‘It’s a catastrophe for the community, the economy and for the migrants themselves. The Jungle has to be dismantled,’ says olivier planque, a local councillor from the village of Audruicq, as he marches through the rain.
like everyone else, the centre-right Republican politician says he wants to help genuine refugees from places like Syria but is fed up with being a magnet for economic migrants from Africa and Asia. A recurring point made by the protesters is they have yet to encounter a single Syrian.
‘The situation is hitting everyone, me and my children,’ says Nicole loeur, a recently retired insurance worker. She points to allotments just below the motorway embankment. ‘Those are workers’ gardens and the migrants steal their fruit, their vegetables, their tools.
‘of course we want to help those who are real refugees. But if it was down to me, I would put the others on a ferry and send them to england, which is where they want to go.’
While most want to see more of the Brits and their cash, there is also a sense that Britain is partly to blame.
‘The French government should close the camp but if Britain wants Brexit, it must face up to its responsibility too,’ says Alex Debuire, 40, local businessman and president of the duck-hunting association.
He says several of his 1,100 members have had their cars vandalised and migrants have eaten many of their ducks.
looking on from a sliproad leading away from the Tunnel, where he has been stuck for several hours with a cargo of wood chips, veteran Cornish lorry driver paddy Collins says he can understand why the locals are cross.
‘The Jungle is a huge problem. I once had someone hiding above my back axle and I had to call the police. Now I just don’t stop when I’m heading for Calais. I’ve got sympathy for these people.’
At the Jungle itself, the atmosphere is subdued. Charity workers erected notices warning people to stay put for the day — ‘for your safety’.
I notice someone has attempted to give the place an added sense of permanence by erecting signs over the main tracks through the mud. There is a ‘Theresa May Street’, leading to an eye-watering latrine block.
Nor is the French president likely to be much impressed by his own thoroughfare. It is called, rather ominously: ‘Avenue Francois Hollande (1954-2017)’.