Calais: “We will not let ourselves be taken away!”

By: fawda - February 9th, 2022  Filed under: Communique, News

Statement from Housing for All Calais

Since Friday 4 February, we have been occupying a building in Rue d’Ajaccio, which has been uninhabited for a year. This occupation took place within the framework of the commemoraction, an international day of mobilization initiated by the families and relatives of people who have died at the border, to denounce the murderous migration policies of the UK, France and the EU.

In Calais, about 1500 people are living on the streets in unacceptable living conditions. Displaced people occupy wastelands and have no access to basic services: housing, sanitation, water, food and medical care. The state imposes conditions of extreme precariousness and invisibility through illegal evictions every 48 hours, the theft of personal belongings by the police, the illegal dismantling of living sites without the possibility of defense in front of a judge, and recurrent police violence. The French and British governments, alongside Natacha Bouchard and all their other friends, have deliberately turned a political issue into a humanitarian crisis, keeping people who want to cross the border in a context of survival. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Calais: Communiqué from Housing for All Calais

By: fawda - February 7th, 2022  Filed under: Communique, News

Housing is a right, even in Calais.

We are a group of people from different countries fighting for everyone’s right to dignified and safe housing. We are currently occupying, for over 48 hours, some of the many buildings in the city of Calais that sit empty and wasted while people sleep on the streets.

We occupy these spaces hoping to break the vicious cycle of state and police violence and dehumanisation that continues in Calais and across the world to enforce national borders. We aim to create an open space free from state violence and discrimination, where someone’s administrative status has no impact on their ability to have their basic needs met, experience solidarity, and live in dignity. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , , ,

Calais: Eviction at Grande-Synthe

By: sisulscz - December 30th, 2020  Filed under: Communique

8.45am [December 29] in Grande Synthe where an expulsion of refugees is taking place. Two identity checks, impossible to enter the forest where about twenty police entered. They are accompanied by cleaning crews, who tear up the tents to prevent their reuse.There are a lot more these day, the ground is soaked, spongy. One by one, the police destroy the tents where migrants are still sleeping. A Kurdish man hurries out, stuff in hand, heading into the forest. It’s raining, two degrees. Some go quickly, carrying on trolleys what they can save from the blows of the digger. Cops Police officers try to convince them to take the buses, without knowing themselves where these buses go. All the tents and tarpaulins are cut and torn, one by one. A young Kurd from Erbil, annoyed and laughing nervously, takes a pciture of his big orange tent being destroyed, “Oh no, man, don’t touch my house, no, no” “OH. I’m homeless now”.
[Read More]

Tags: , ,

Calais: the saga of evictions continues

By: fawda - October 23rd, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

Yesterday morning, October 22, 2020, the Prefecture of Pas de Calais once again proceeded with the eviction and mass destruction of a camp. It was a place called “Unicorn Jungle”, where nearly 300 exiled people were surviving, according to the distribution of tents made by Utopia 56 a week earlier. Once again, the associations denounced the brutality and inefficiency of these operations. They do not respect the fundamental rights of the exiled.

The associations denounce the violation of the exiled people’s right to come and go. Once again, a dozen buses had been chartered to take them to an unknown destination. The authorities carried out a “sheltering” operation for at least 190 people. This “sheltering” of men, but also women and children. The uselessness of this “sheltering” operation can be seen, in particular, by the frequency of these operations. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , , ,

Calais: the tension does not fall back

By: fawda - September 28th, 2020  Filed under: News

On Saturday, September 26, 2020, more than 400 people walk in the rain for freedom and human dignity.

Calaisians, activists, volunteers and migrants found themselves in the pouring rain and set off in a demonstration from the camp next to the hospital in Calais. In spite of the wind and rain, the migrants join the parade by dancing to the sound of drums, leading the march and parading with joy and determination in the rain.

At the arrival at the Place de Norvège, a few words from supporters and migrants alternate with music and hip-hop improvisation in all languages. In spite of the cold, it is a moment of euphoria and unity between people who don’t have the opportunity to mix in the city otherwise.
At the microphone, migrants testify to their fatigue and exasperation in the face of daily harassment by the police who evict, destroy tents and confiscate their materials, calling for them to be treated as human beings and not as animals. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Calais: the ban on distributing food to migrants is maintained. Mobilization on September 26th

By: fawda - September 23rd, 2020  Filed under: Communique, News

For the judge of the administrative court of Lille, 4 kms on foot to eat, that’s fine.

In an order dated September 22, the judge of the administrative court of Lille rejected the request made by 12 local and national associations to cancel the order of September 10, by which the prefect of Pas-de-Calais prohibited any free distribution of drinks and food in certain places in the city center of the municipality of Calais.

The judge stated that the distributions put in place by the State were allegedly sufficient to cover the needs of all exiled people present in Calais, including those sleeping in the city center, considering that “the circumstance that in order to access them, migrants settled in the city center since early August must travel three kilometers is not such as to characterize undignified living conditions”.

This assessment is particularly questionable. Indeed, the humanitarian indicators developed either by the UNHCR or within the framework of the SPHERE project, specify, for example, concerning drinking water, that it must be accessible at less than 500m from where people live – the distances in question being in this case between 4 and 5km, which represents an hour’s walk one way, and that it is necessary to go to two distributions per day. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Calais: a decree forbids associations to distribute food to migrants, humanitarians rise up

By: fawda - September 11th, 2020  Filed under: News

An order published Thursday by the prefect of Pas-de-Calais forbids associations not mandated by the State to distribute food to migrants living in Calais. L’Auberge des migrants and Utopia 56 insist on such a measure which they consider “shameful and scandalous”.

A new tug-of-war between migrant aid associations and the authorities in Calais, northern France. In a decree published on Thursday, September 10, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais, Louis le Franc, announced a ban on “any free distribution of drinks and food [in about twenty streets, quays, squares in the city center] to put an end to public disorder and limit the health risks associated with undeclared gatherings.

“Non-compliance with distancing measures”

Insofar as the State has mandated an association, la Vie active, to provide “four daily distributions of meals”, that it makes available to migrants 38 water taps 5 days a week, including “22 accessible 7 days a week” and that water is distributed during meals, the prefecture considers that “the set of services provided makes it possible to provide migrants with sufficient humanitarian services with regard to the needs of this population, particularly food”. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , ,

Calais: associations refer cases to the Human Rights Defender and UN rapporteurs on the situation of migrants

By: fawda - August 15th, 2020  Filed under: News

Today took place in Calais the 693rd eviction from an informal living space since 1 January 2020. As of 13 August 2020, the fundamental rights of the exiled people surviving in Calais are still not respected (Human Rights Observers).

Thirteen associations working with migrants in Calais announced on Friday that they had contacted the Human Rights Defender, as well as seven United Nations special rapporteurs on human rights, to “alert them to the inhuman living conditions” of refugees.

In Calais, the evictions of camps are continuing and police repression of migrants has increased since the arrival of Gérald Darmanin at the Ministry of the Interior, according to human rights groups present in the area.

In an attempt to make their voices heard, thirteen of them – including the Auberge des Migrants, Médecins du Monde and Secours Catholique – seized on Friday 14 August the Human Rights Defender Claire Hédon, whose mandate has just begun, as well as seven United Nations special rapporteurs on human rights. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , , ,

Calais: Coronavirus, housing and deportations

By: fawda - April 2nd, 2020  Filed under: News

For more than two weeks now, France has been on lock-down. With most French people unable to leave their homes, migrants in Calais are still being evicted from theirs. Human Rights Observers in Calais have counted 45 deportations since March 17th. A police union, Synergie-Officiers, has called for an end to these daily deportations, but the department and prefecture still insist they continue. The PAF (Police Aux Frontiers) have stopped carrying out these daily deportations in the city, initially retreating to their work in the detention centre. This just means different cops do them (CRS and Gendarmerie).

The crisis that is the states’ response to the coronavirus pandemic does not show any signs of letting up. Additional powers are being granted to states from now. As one example (stay aware of others) of the state using the pandemic to meet its goals that could not otherwise be easily achieved, Greece used it to justify evicting many families from the Politechnio squat.

In Calais, health and sanitation have already been used as excuses for deportations. Despite a later ruling against the closing of shops and restaurants in the jungle, armed police seized food, water, gas, cigarettes in 2016, under pretext of “sanitary control.” Calling it a humanitarian intervention, in 2014, the state evicted about 650 people because of scabies and sanitation. Neither then nor now, the state took responsibility for creating these conditions for people or gave solutions. [Read More]

Tags: , , , , ,

Calais (France): Another illegal expulsion

By: xxx - January 18th, 2018  Filed under: News

Communication received by people in solidarity who live in this city.

A communiqué from people in solidarity with the inhabitants of 63 rue Georges Maquer in Calais

More and more regularly living spaces in Calais are being illegally evicted.
The manipulation and non-respect of the law here in Calais is leading to abuses and regular and intolerable violence. Such violations of the law in a state where law are supposed to be respected are particularly inadmissible when they are carried out by the law enforcement authorities. They are all the more intolerable when they target people already in situations of high vulnerability. [Read More]

Tags: , , , ,

Calais: Recent police attacks on distributions

By: sisulscz - July 28th, 2017  Filed under: Communique

In the last weeks the police have started to include attacks on support infrastructure in their campaign of violence and intimidation against people on the move in this city. Volunteers and supporters in Calais have been reporting police attacks during food distributions, traffic stops and fines when going out in association vehicles to do distributions, threats to seize vehicles, poisoning of water supplies, and the destruction of donations. This is in addition to the police violence which takes place daily in the jungles, at the parkings, and in the streets for which volunteers are not often present.

Image: Water containers contaminated with CS gas
[Read More]

Tags: , ,

Calais Research Network: 40+ companies profiting from the Jungle eviction and border violence

By: xxx - October 19th, 2016  Filed under: News

The eviction of the Calais jungle is about to begin, but who does this act of brutality serve? On the one hand, cynical politicians looking to the French presidential election next year, desperately trying to cling onto power with a show of toughness. But also, it will boost the profits of a host of private companies who supply the rubber bullets and barbed wire, bulldozers and deportation buses. [Read More]

Tags: , ,