Vol. 80/No. 43 November 14, 2016
French gov’t closes camp, leaves refugees in limbo
French officials have begun to bus thousands of Jungle residents who they deem eligible to seek asylum to “welcome centers” across the country. But many others are now living on the streets in Calais and Paris.
“I’m not getting on any bus tomorrow,” Salman Afridi, a 22-year-old Pakistani, told the Telegraph Oct. 24. “They can arrest me but whatever happens I am coming back here. I will get to England.” That has been the goal of up to 10,000 refugees and other immigrants who have been living in the Calais camp.
Each night, a number attempt to cross into the U.K., stowing away on trucks passing through the Eurotunnel or on ferries. The U.K. government declares such entrants “illegal” and fines truckers up to £2,000 ($2,440) for every stowaway caught. Eurotunnel officials and some truckers had called for the Jungle to be closed.
An estimated 1,000 to 1,500 unaccompanied minors are still at the camp, stuck in a legal limbo as British and French authorities debate whether they will be allowed to pursue asylum claims inside the U.K.
The Jungle dwellers constitute a small portion of nearly 2 million refugees who have fled the Middle East, North Africa and Asia for Europe in the last couple of years, fueled especially by the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The largest number of these head for Germany, encouraged by the government of Angela Merkel. Some 475,000 sought asylum there in 2015.
Many perish en route. According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 3,770 drowned in the Mediterranean Sea last year.
The huge wave of refugees and immigrants is exacerbating conflicts among the capitalist rulers across Europe. Governments have responded by strengthening borders, erecting razor wire fences policed by armed cops, soldiers and goons. The U.K. government is funding the building of a wall in Calais to add to the razor wire security fencing around the Eurotunnel entrance.
London and Paris agreed in 2003 to set up immigration controls at each others Channel ports. Now many French politicians are calling for scrapping the treaty, to push London to process asylum-seekers on its own territory.
In a visit to the camp in August 2015, this reporter noted in the Militant that the squalid Jungle was taking on a semipermanent character, mirroring on a small scale the vast camps of Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
The French government denies the refugees the right to work, until after nine months, and the U.K. government generally denies asylum-seekers the right to work while their requests are being considered.
Going door to door in Harlow, outside London, Oct. 29, Communist League members found a wide-ranging debate about what was happening in Calais. “These migrants are in France and France should take responsibility,” said a young hairdresser who didn’t want to give her name.
“The source of the problem lies in the Middle East which was devastated by two wars against Iraq involving thousands of British troops,” said Kay McGinley, a college teacher. “ISIS came out of that. Britain and other countries should get out.”
“As someone from an Irish Traveler background I can identify with the refugees in Calais,” Anne Dundon, 30, told Paul Davies and Debra Jacobs, from the Communist League. “If they close the camp, what are they going to do with the people?”
“The way the refugees are portrayed separates them from other working people,” Jacobs replied. “It’s part of their divide-and-rule strategy. The unions need to organize all working people, regardless of where they come from, whether they have papers or not.”
“In the U.K. those who apply for asylum don’t get paid benefits — they just get tokens so when they are shopping others can see that they are asylum-seekers,” Davies added.
“Yes,” responded Dundon, “that’s wrong. And the government is trying to extend that system of tokens rather than cash payments to other benefit recipients, not just asylum-seekers.”
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