Drivers threaten to extend Calais blockades over stowaway fines
LORRY drivers in Calais are threatening to extend a blockade to the port and Eurotunnel next week unless Britain stops fining drivers whose vehicles are found to contain migrant stowaways.
Motorists hoping to cross the Channel in either direction have been advised to avoid Calais tomorrow, when hundreds of lorries will converge along the A16 motorway leading to the port and block the entry road entirely.
They will be joined by tractors driven by farmers irate at seeing their land trampled by migrants and police.
The blockade is going ahead despite the French government’s pledge on Friday to dismantle the Calais “Jungle”, a sprawling camp now home to up to 10,000 migrants hoping to reach Britain “by the end of the year”.
The lorry drivers and farmers will be joined by shopkeepers, businessmen and even disgruntled police officers, who will form a “human chain” in solidarity. Calais residents have been asked to take a day off to participate.
But Sébastien Rivera, secretary general of the French haulage federation in the Pas de Calais area, said that their decision to end the action also depended on Britain.
“We demand that British authorities waive fines of lorry companies and their drivers, who are obliged to each pay up to £2,000 for every migrant found in their vehicles. We can no longer stand such fines imposed by British authorities.”
He added: “It’s intolerable because we are above all the victims in this affair but are treated like people smugglers.”
He said that violence against lorry drivers had never been so great. One truck was recently burned by Molotov cocktails and another driver had a stone thrown at his head through a windscreen. “The pressure is unprecedented. Our vehicles and goods are damaged. Yet on top of all that we get fined by the British if a migrant manages to evade detection. It’s not on.”
Richard Burnett, chief executive of the British Road Haulage Association said that while the British Government had shown a “level of pragmatism” when fines had been appealed, he sympathised with the French.
“The level of attacks are unprecedented, so to expect hauliers to still be fined when you’ve got this incredibly high risk coming through Calais itself needs some urgent review by the UK Home Office,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, has promised to discuss the matter with his British counterpart, Amber Rudd when the two meet in the coming days.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The fines imposed exist to ensure that all drivers are taking reasonable measures to stop migrants from boarding their lorries. We have recently consulted on proposals to modernise the regime to reflect developments.”
‘Our vehicles and goods are damaged. Yet we get fined by the British if a migrant manages to evade detection’