Why the French ARE to blame for Calais migrant crisis, by LEO MCKINSTRY (original) (raw)

Why the French ARE to blame for migrant crisis: LEO MCKINSTRY says Prime Minister is wrong, we should point fingers directly at France as disaster unfolds on their soil

• David Cameron said there was 'no point trying to point fingers of blame'
• As they are on French soil, authorities there should deal with immigrants
• By helping set up camp, French have created welcoming 'departure lounge'
• French charities have also helped migrants with food, clothing and tents

Published: 20:40 EST, 29 July 2015 | Updated: 04:41 EST, 30 July 2015

Asked about the chaos in Calais, David Cameron yesterday repeated his view that ‘there is no point in trying to point fingers of blame. It’s about working with the French...’

Sorry, Prime Minister, but we should point fingers — directly at the French. The responsibility for this increasingly dangerous situation lies with them. The disaster is unfolding on their soil and it is up to them to uphold law and order.

Here, LEO McKINSTRY explains why the French are at fault, and how they could take immediate steps to end the crisis...

David Cameron (pictured during news conference at the Government office in Hanoi yesterday) has repeated his view that 'there is no point in trying to point fingers of blame. It's about working with the French'

• Under the Dublin Convention, migrants are supposed to claim asylum in the first safe EU country they reach, and can be sent back there if they fail to do so. By definition, Britain will not be the first safe country for any of those who arrive from Calais. In any case, most of the migrants massing at Calais are not genuine refugees fleeing persecution to seek asylum, but are economic migrants after a better life in Britain. And since they are on French soil, the authorities there should deal with immigration applications and deport all those who fail to qualify. French border police have proved capable of tough action. In the town of Ventimiglia on the France-Italy border, officers refused migrants entry into their country, saying it is Italy’s responsibility to process claims.
• By helping to establish a camp on the edge of Calais — home to 5,000 — the French have created a welcoming ‘departures lounge’ for anyone wanting to slip illegally into England. It also offers somewhere for criminal gangs to gather: there is no doubt that attacks on the tunnel and its buildings have been organised at the camp. What’s more, French charities help the migrants with food, clothing and tents. Instead of offering these migrants succour as they plot their illegal passage to Dover, the French should be using bulldozers, water cannon and guard dogs to disperse them. They have done it before at Calais and, more recently, Paris. When they do act, they merely drop migrants a short distance away — groups quickly return.

But Leo McKinstry says the French are to blame for a number of reasons. He said since they are on French soil, the authorities there should deal with immigration applications and deport all those who fail to qualify

By helping to establish a camp on the edge of Calais (pictured) — home to 5,000 — the French have created a welcoming ‘departures lounge’ for anyone wanting to slip illegally into England

• Britain has promised an additional £7 million to France to improve fencing and security around the Channel Tunnel, but the French could do so much more themselves. They could have used better thermo-detection technology (to find stowaways), tighter checks on vehicles and stronger passport controls. The French have failed to properly police the routes to Calais to stop migrants reaching the port. One solution would be for them to let the British Army, with their experience of policing unrest in Northern Ireland, to operate at Calais. If that offended the French, they could summon their feared Compagnies Republicaines de Securite, the 13,000-strong national police force responsible for crowd control, which readily uses tear gas grenades.
• Cynically, the French pretend the Calais crisis is Britain’s problem, since these African and Middle Eastern migrants want to reach our shores. They argue all immigration controls should be shifted to Dover and Folkestone. But this is a shameful dereliction of duty under European national agreements. The reason the British/French border controls were set up in Calais in 2003 was precisely to deal with the huge build-up of illegal migrants at the notorious Sangatte camp, most of whom were posing as asylum seekers. Moving the border across the Channel to Kent would attract even more migrants to the area, worsening Calais’s problems.

Migrants clamber over a flimsy mesh fence at the edge of a railway in a bid to get closer to the entrance of the Channel Tunnel in Calais

A migrant helps another man through the small gap in the fence in the hope they will be able to cross over into Britain for asylum

• Calais Migrant Solidarity, a pressure group that wants an end to immigration controls, is typical of many that are exploiting world sympathy for ‘victims’. They want the thousands of migrants provided with bikes, tents, sleeping bags, mobile phone chargers and reading material, ‘especially in Pashto, Farsi, Tigrinya and Amharic’. Such nonsense shouldn’t be tolerated by the French authorities. The rights of law-abiding European citizens should count more than those of foreign interlopers.
• The migrant crisis has been fuelled by the French trade union Syndicat Maritime Nord, which represents ferry workers at Calais and is engaged in illegal strike action over potential job cuts. Led by the militant Eric Vercoutre, its members have set fire to motorways and paralysed harbours with blockades. The result is gridlock in France and Kent, exploited by migrant gangs. The French police should learn from Margaret Thatcher’s reaction to striking miners and deal firmly with Vercoutre and union thugs. But politicians appear to be siding with him. Daniel Percheron, a local socialist leader, has offered a £700 ‘bonus’ to anyone who helps blockade the Channel Tunnel.

Control: French gendarmes block migrants along a road to prevent them access to train tracks which lead to the Channel Tunnel in Frethun, near Calais

A group of migrants brazenly walk on the railway, bypassing an old carriage, as they make their final bid to get to the UK

• Natacha Bouchart, the Mayor of Calais, has behaved as a one-woman advertising campaign to entice migrants with talk about all the positives of a new life in Britain. She’s highlighted the generous benefits system, low unemployment and free National Health Service — saying Britain seems an ‘El Dorado’. She has pointed out that migrants can exploit the fact we don’t have ID cards, so they ‘can easily find work outside the formal economy, which is not really controlled’. Her deputy says the UK is unique in having a ‘black economy’. These Gallic buck-passers would do better to put their own house in order, recognising the Calais crisis is a disaster for the French economy. Tourism is France’s most successful industry, yet millions of British holiday-makers are being deterred from visiting.
• The Calais crisis is the ultimate symbol of the failure of the ‘EU project’. Open borders were meant to herald a new era of freedom and enterprise. Instead, they have brought only chaos and division. Yet France remains wedded to the disastrous ideology of federal unity and opposes reform of the EU’s failing institutions. Last week, President Francois Hollande said that ‘what threatens us is not too much Europe but the lack of it’. What’s needed is not doctrinaire nonsense, but a willingness of the French to take responsibility for the crisis.