Migrants in Calais: Human Rights Watch denounces life of “humiliation” and “harassment”

Daily evictions, lacerated tents, confiscated goods … The State is implementing a “Deterrence policy” on the north coast, which subjects migrants to a “Daily humiliation and harassment”, documents a report released Thursday, October 7 by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In this publication, which appears five years after the dismantling, in October 2016, of the immense Calais encampment, nicknamed the “Jungle”, HRW believes that “Police practices” on the coast “Have made the lives of migrants more and more miserable”. A situation that associations, independent authorities and human rights defenders have denounced for years.

In Calais, Grande-Synthe and their surroundings, where more than a thousand people still live in wooded areas, abandoned warehouses or under bridges, in the hope of crossing over to the United Kingdom, the police couple “Periodic mass expulsions” with “Routine operations” which push the exiles to move continuously, “While the agents confiscate the tents which they could not take with them – often slashing them so that they are no longer usable”, writes the NGO. “When the police arrive, we have five minutes to get out of the tent before they destroy everything”, testifies Rona D., an Iraqi Kurd cited in the report. “The police slashed the tarpaulin which served as the roof of our shelter”, she explained when she was questioned in December 2020.

950 evictions in 2020

“Nothing can justify subjecting people to daily humiliation and harassment”, recalled Bénédicte Jeannerod, director for France of HRW. “If the objective is to dissuade migrants from coming to the north of France, these policies are a blatant failure and plunge people into deep desolation. “

According to the HRO (Human Rights Observers), an association which specializes in monitoring the migratory situation on the northern coast, the police carried out more than 950 deportation operations in 2020. “Routine” in Calais, 90 in Grande-Synthe, during which it seized 5,000 tents and tarpaulins.

“These abusive practices are part of a more comprehensive policy of dissuasion by the authorities, aimed at suppressing or avoiding anything that could, in their eyes, attract migrants to the north of France and encourage the establishment of camps or settlements. ‘other “fixing points”’, further deplores HRW, who investigated on the spot from October to December 2020, then in June and July 2021, interviewing in particular 60 migrants.

A strategy assumed by the Ministry of the Interior, which did not respond to requests from Agence France-Presse but whose tenant, Gérald Darmanin, explained in July to The voice of the North : “The instruction I gave to avoid reliving what Calais residents experienced a few years ago is the firmness of the police”, resulting in “Operations every twenty-four or forty-eight hours”.

” Vicious circle “

It also translates, recalls the NGO, by “Restrictions on humanitarian aid”, which crystallized in recent decrees prohibiting the distribution of food and water by certain associations in the city center of Calais. There remain the distributions approved by the State. “Sometimes they change the place where they give the food and you don’t know where to go. We try to run “, corn “By the time we arrive, they may already be gone”, testifies a 17-year-old Syrian.

“Basically, the authorities are doing everything they can to make living conditions unlivable”, summarizes Antoine Guittin, a local association manager of Choose Love cited in the report. Faced with this observation, Human Rights Watch urges France to “Break the vicious circle of repeated expulsions and harassment”. Above all, asks the NGO, “Put an end to the practice of confiscating tents, tarpaulins, sleeping bags and blankets in camps”. The dismantling of the “jungle” was to “Put an end to an unworthy situation”, insists Bénédicte Jeannerod. “But the current situation is, in many ways, also outrageous. “

The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) denounced previously the violation of ” fundamental rights “ exiles in Calais and Grande-Synthe. The Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, had also denounced the living conditions “Degrading and inhuman” migrants living in Calais.