In the headlines: the worst drama in a shipwreck off the coast of Calais
Audio 04:06
(illustration) Migrants in Calais, March 2018. Denis Charlet / AFP
By: Mehdi Meddeb
4 min
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At least 27 migrants died yesterday as they tried to cross the Channel. And the press is in turmoil.
"Chronicle of a dreaded shipwreck"
title
Today in France
.
"
The horror
" for
the Voix du Nord
, "
a nightmare
",
"France is in shock"
says the regional daily.
"This drama which gives the Channel an air of the Mediterranean Sea in its most terrible"
.
"The boat was probably struck by a cargo ship,"
explains the voice of the North.
"Then at 2 pm, a fisherman sounds the alert
", we read in
Today in France
.
"He spots the first bodies ..."
.
"An unprecedented drama off the coast of Calais
,"
Le Monde
tells us
.
“Such an assessment is unprecedented”.
The newspaper reporter haunted by this image -
"these hearses entering one after the other in the port area of Calais
".
“Most of the victims were Kurds, originating from Iraq or Iran
, underlines
Le Monde.
Only two survived.
"Two shadows in the night dressed in a survival blanket"
wrote on the spot
the Voix du Nord.
A drama that provokes a shock wave in France and Great Britain ...
Emmanuel Macron, the first, announces that
"France will not let the Channel become a cemetery
". And yet the Channel is already a cemetery.
La Voix du Nord
recalls
“that
before this disaster, in the Calais region, 308 migrants had already died at the border. Drowned, overthrown, crushed, murdered.
But the time for politicians is not to count, but to look for an ideal culprit ... the smugglers.
"These criminals"
for Gérald Darmanin dispatched on the spot teaches us
the Figaro
. At daggers drawn on the migrant file, Paris and London would be on the same wavelength. Bojo, Boris Johnson ready to work with France for
"Put an end to these gangs of murderous smugglers"
we read in
Le Monde
.
"Except that there were no smugglers before the border was locked"
indicates a researcher in the evening daily.
"But our leaders are fleeing their responsibilities,
" gets angry François Guennoc in the
Voix du Nord
.
For years, the president of the migrant hostel has been helping exiles on the spot.
"France is blocking the border and forcing the exiles to risk their lives to pass, and the British authorities who have suppressed legal channels and the possibility of family
reunification." Moreover,
Liberation
notes that a British MP says no less:
"We must restore safer legal channels"
.
“Because this year between 23,000 and 25,000 people reached British soil
, underlined
Libé
,
it is three times more than in 2020
”. Except that London grants much less asylum.
"And by militarizing the border, the authorities are in reality pushing people into the arms of the smugglers"
ends another activist from the migrant hostel in
Today in France
.
“In fact, the phenomenon of the Channel crossings appeared concomitantly with the drying up of truck passages and with these barbed wire and barrier belts which are constantly flourishing in Calais”
concludes
Le Monde
.
And it is also becoming militarized in the East
Le Figaro looks
back on the protection of Europe's external borders.
“More than 1000 km of barriers, the equivalent of six Berlin walls
,” says
Figaro
in a reference to the not so trivial history.
"The fall of the Wall, epilogue of the cold war, this parenthesis is closed"
continues the ultra-conservative newspaper.
"These concrete walls, these sharp barbed wire are on the rise again on the border between Poland and Belarus"
.
"In Latvia we are even taking the lead"
, adds
Le Figaro
,
"with 33 km under construction
".
"Europe become a fortress but whose walls are no longer taboo"
notes
the Figaro again
.
Which notes
"that 14 EU countries, or more than half of EU member countries support the funding of these walls by the European Union"
.
We go from walls to whispers
"The whispers didn't bother them, but the cascading #MeToo woke up the wave"
storms
Humanity
. The newspaper founded by Jean Jaurès focuses on this saving wave of speech liberation movements in France.
"Me # Too Incest, Me # Too Gay, Me # Too theater, Me # Too bar, Me # Too policy, testimonies that move the lines, lead to debates, change the laws, allowed a commission within the Catholic Church, but now ”
says
Huma
.
"It is time to train in schools, police stations, courts, offices, because this violence is not a virus but the result of a patriarchal system"
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