The State undertakes to “systematically” offer accommodation to migrants who will be evicted from their makeshift camps in Calais.

The proposal, which will be formally formulated to local actors on Tuesday by the government mediator sent on site, comes on the 23rd day of a hunger strike followed by three activists.

"We will systematically offer accommodation, which will be essentially in Pas-de-Calais, in Hauts-de-France, but not in Calais", confided this mediator, the boss of the French Immigration Office and of integration (Ofii) Didier Leschi.

The latter thus recognized, de facto, that the evacuations of camps in Calais were not always accompanied by proposals for sheltering, which is however the rule.

To keep its commitment, the State will have to "increase its accommodation base" by "several hundred places", he stressed.

Avoid the creation of a new "jungle" in Calais

This commitment also responds to the government's fear of seeing a new “jungle” appear in Calais, after the dismantling, in October 2016, of this gigantic encampment which brought together up to 10,000 migrants. “This fear is linked to the scale of the flows: since the beginning of the year, there are almost 40,000 people who have arrived” on the north coast, explains Didier Leschi. "The state cannot knowingly allow a clandestine departure base to be organized for England, while people are also risking their lives crossing the Channel," he added.

The hunger strikers and the associations intervening in Calais denounce the "inhuman" subsistence of the exiles, who survive in unsanitary camps evacuated daily, seeing themselves moreover confiscating their meager personal effects at the option of the expulsions.

On this point, the head of the Ofii proposes to leave a period of “approximately 45 minutes” for migrants to gather their belongings.

"There will be no more evacuation by surprise", promises the mediator, assuring in addition that a maraud of the Ofii "will pass before each evacuation" to carry out a social diagnosis, in connection with the associations.

These proposals could come into force as of "the weekend", estimated Didier Leschi, who must meet the strikers at the end of the morning, then the associations at the beginning of the afternoon, to transmit these written commitments.

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  • Immigration

  • Calais

  • Society

  • Migrants