How the UK and France Are Threatening Migrant Rights
As migrants gather in Calais and Dunkirk hoping to find a better life across the Channel, the UK and France conspire to deny them their rights as well as their basic humanity.
By Hayley Krieger
IT’S POURING RAIN in Loon-Plage, a small town in the north of France near Dunkirk. I am volunteering for the summer with Project Play, a non-profit organization that provides play sessions to displaced children, with the central idea that play is essential for any child’s well-being and development. We are in Loon-Plage to host a session, but the torrential downpour and an eviction that took place earlier that day make us wary about whether or not to set up. Pieces of tents and trash are strewn around the dirt mounds in the living site. Since we see a group of kids under the Red Cross tent looking a bit bored, my team at Project Play decides to put up our sunny yellow gazebo and set out free play.
We put out play-doh, instruments, books, coloring supplies, blocks, and a sensory blanket for little ones. The kids run over to our gazebo, complain that we didn’t take out the sports equipment (soccer is very popular), and play with the play-doh for about an hour and a half. A new family with an infant arrives at Loon Plage, and they are immediately greeted by the family in our gazebo. Another grassroots non-profit, Refugee Community Kitchen, gives them a hot vegan meal, while the family huddles under our dry gazebo. As five o’clock in the evening nears, we tell the families we need to pack up and leave, but that we come to the living site five days a week and will return. It is a painful moment packing up our gazebo and leaving two families with young kids to go back to their tents in the downpour.
This day happened almost three months ago, and it still haunts me. Knowing that the families returned to a thin tent for shelter, with few options for protection from the elements, makes me incredibly angry at the tumultuous situation to which people are subjected by the French and UK governments.
In northern France, thousands of migrants live in shoddy conditions while on their journey to seek asylum in the UK. Calais and Dunkirk are a short 30 kilometres from the UK border, prompting millions of migrants over the years to make a lengthy journey to this region of France. Displaced people from all over the globe, but primarily the Middle East, North Africa and East Africa, spend months or even years traveling to reach this point, in order to cross into the UK (by boat or by truck). Migrants are not a monolith — someone from Afghanistan does not become an asylum seeker for the same reasons a Sudanese person does. (Nevertheless, I urge everyone to read this piece by Abdul Saboor, an Afghan refugee’s personal experience to get a better sense of why someone may come to Calais.) In Calais and Dunkirk, these migrants, who many consider to be refugees, live in tent camps in wooded areas or behind bridges and train stations. Many living sites are considered “informal” refugee camps, which means they are not subject to international norms of accountability and sanitation and are not accessible to life-saving services such as ambulances and fire response.
Aside from the hardships of living in tents in variable weather conditions, migrants in Calais are brutally tormented by French police. Denying assistance to migrants and harshly policing living settlements is part of France’s “zero fixation point policy”, a strategy aiming to keep migrants away. Additionally, the UK coordinates with France to enact these severe policies, due to its legal ability to operate border controls in France and Belgium. Border police forces in France received about 55 million pounds (about 77 million CAD) from the UK government to fund “border security” in 2021, ultimately causing great harm to vulnerable migrants. Those who have suffered through violence and hardship deserve support, not further injustice and devastation.
The French security forces regularly evict migrants from these refugee camps. Police come into living sites and seize tents and sleeping bags. If tents are not seized, they are slashed and made unusable. Frequently, personal belongings such as backpacks, electronic devices, and clothes are also taken. In a living site I visited multiple times a week for two months this summer, these evictions happened about once a week. Data reported by Human Rights Observers, a non-profit organization documenting police abuse of displaced people on the border between the UK and France, shows that more than 1,200 evictions took place in Calais and Grand-Synthe in 2021.
French police also frequently deny refugees access to basic necessities. This past summer, record temperatures hit Europe and the UK. In the UK, the hottest day on record happened on July 19th, when the temperature reached 40.2 degrees C in Heathrow. The temperature in Calais was about the same, subjecting vulnerable migrants to the harsh elements. On July 20th, the French police illegally seized a water tank that was provided by the organization Roots for distributing clean drinking water to refugees in the heat. Safe drinking water is a right that is supposed to be guaranteed to all refugees in France, according to both the Conseil d’État and the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. Taking away access to basic necessities shows a disrespect towards the issues in Calais, implying that refugees are subhuman and undeserving of basic needs. States inflict this violence for the sake of “border security”, dishonouring the sentiment of international refugee law to which these countries are party under the Refugee Convention and EU Common European Asylum System. This is not border protection; this is abuse.
Beyond the illegality of these actions, they do not achieve the goal of stopping refugees from attempting to resettle themselves nor do they address the root cause of the attempts to resettle. Displaced people are incredibly resilient; when their tents are taken, they will find another tent. Taking necessities from those who have already lost so much is an act of violence that should be condemned.
The French government has a legal obligation to provide housing, food, clothing, and health care to asylum seekers in transit, but under-provides these services and endangers the work of outside organizations that provide comprehensive aid to displaced people. By law, France must provide a dignified standard of living to all displaced people who intend to apply for asylum. The French government makes a minimal effort to house and feed the neediest migrants, but the lack of progress in providing safe conditions has raised concern from many critics, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation. Where the French government fails to cover the basic needs of displaced people, an array of organizations provide migrants with food, water, clothing, phone charging, materials for basic shelter, and firewood for cooking and keeping warm. Collective Aid, for example, distributes thousands of clothing items, tents, and sleeping bags each month to displaced people in Calais. Police will regularly park in front of distribution sites, intimidating migrants seeking to receive essential items, in addition to the regularly seizing of distributed basic needs items. Despite the parallel obligation of the French government to provide a standard of living to asylum seekers, the French government strips access to shelter away from asylum seekers — a rather pointed act of hypocrisy. This further intensifies the need for non-profit aid in Calais and Dunkirk, but organizations in the region face threats from French security forces and the local community that makes their work immensely difficult.
The local community in Calais also puts the work of local organizations at risk. While some are outright prejudiced against asylum seekers, many are NIMBYs who just want displaced people moved away from Calais. Last summer, local residents slashed the tires of organizations’ vans, while others drilled holes into water tanks providing clean water to migrants. In late August, a warehouse that houses eight non-profit organizations was broken into; a generator to charge phones was stolen and two vans were damaged. The irony is that supporting policies that provide better services to migrants in the area would reduce the impact of displaced people in the region currently. As of right now, non-profit organizations are cleaning sites after evictions and providing trash collection services — amenities that would not be necessary if the state cared for asylum seekers the way they are supposed to. In a world with shelter and basic needs given to displaced people in Calais, local residents would not feel the effects of living in a hotspot for migration as intensely. The result of the state’s inaction and violence creates a cycle that harms local residents, which they take out on organizations that bear the brunt of their frustrations.
In considering solutions for Calais, it is essential to recognize that France and the UK already have the capacity to help asylum seekers. In February 2022, the French and British authorities came to an agreement to allow Ukrainians to safely cross the border in order for the UK to process those asylum claims. Forces of power and privilege have created an evident dichotomy between Ukrainian refugees and “the others”. There is clear differential treatment and this shows a capacity to create legal and safe channels for asylum seekers (without the risks of staying long-term in Calais or crossing), but only Ukrainians experience the benefits of sweeping protections. Meanwhile, migrants of color are left in shoddy tents, sleeping in the dirt and awaiting a potentially deadly journey across the English channel where an uncertain future awaits them.
Working in Calais and Dunkirk, I heard stories and fragments of people’s lives that will stay with me forever. Beyond the highly emotional nature of working directly with displaced people, it is infuriating to see people receive subhuman treatment by a state. It is clear that displaced people experience a high degree of trauma, and the conditions in Calais further traumatize people who have already left unlivable circumstances. Thus, it is urgent that the UK and France consider the harm that “border security” policies cause: these policies go beyond securing a border, they have very real consequences for so many lives. I also urge everyone to keep an eye on Calais, as the impact of dangerous “border security” policies like the Rwanda plan is likely to leave more migrants stranded in Calais, subjecting more displaced people to the brutality of security forces. Conditions are already untenable and inhumane, and without a new approach from the French and UK governments, more displaced people will suffer.
Hayley Krieger is a cooperative Master’s candidate at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy (Masters of Public Policy) and Johns Hopkins SAIS (Masters of International Affairs). Hayley is interested in international conflict resolution, children's rights, and migration and refugee policy.
Below is a poem written by a former Collective Aid volunteer, expressing the anger and frustration with local animosity towards refugees and non-profits. It highlights the dynamics of privilege in receiving basic services and asks how one would want to be treated if they were displaced.
A letter to the man
By Leonie Hertig
It must be hard seeing people who don’t look like you live so close
They look ragged and live in tents surrounded by litter
It is a terrifying foreignness, isn’t it?
They could live in houses, dress in clothes they like,
be your colleague at work or the person you speak to on the phone
Humanity creates humanity
So you slash water tanks
The drill heavy in your hand
As you leave the house
to turn holes into plastic
One after the other you sooth your hate
This itch that can only be scratched with destruction
And you go back to your house
Turning on the tap,
you allow yourself a big, cool glass of water
Because it is a hot day and you did some hard work
Well done for stealing the most essential commodity every human needs
When the sea comes knocking on your door and you have to flee your home
Hope you will be approached with kindness and not your hate
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This excellent article is timely . The world has gone silent on the rights of migrants especially children. We need to keep the light burning on this issue.