Migrants: the government sends a mediator to Calais, to calm tensions

Lionel Gougelot with AFP 7:15 p.m., October 27, 2021

The boss of the French Office for Immigration and Integration (Ofii) Didier Leschi will travel from Wednesday for a mediation mission in Calais, the scene of a resounding hunger strike in support of migrants, a announced Tuesday the Ministry of the Interior.

"Didier Leschi is sent by the Ministry of the Interior to Calais from tomorrow (Wednesday) for a contact mission", indicated Place Beauvau, after two weeks of a hunger strike initiated by three people on the 11th. October.

A "contact mission"

This is a "contact and mediation mission to put in place the conditions for a constructive exit from the crisis for all", underlined the Director General of Ofii. The latter, one of the actors in the dismantling of the moor (known as the "jungle") of Calais five years ago almost to the day, is due to meet the associative actors and the strikers there on Wednesday. Philippe Demeestère, a 72-year-old Chaplain of the Secours Catholique pour le Pas-de-Calais, as well as two activists, Anaïs Vogel and Ludovic Holbein, are engaged in a hunger strike in the Saint-Pierre church in Calais, in particular to demand an end to the dismantling of migrant camps during the winter period.

Last week, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais Louis Le Franc announced that he wanted to "increase the frequency of consultation meetings organized at the sub-prefecture of Calais", a border town with the United Kingdom, to which many migrants daily try to pass.

>> READ ALSO - 

Why does Calais remain the city of migrants?

"I hope that we can finally talk about everything"

"It's good that there is someone coming. (...) I hope that at last we can talk about everything, about reality, about what people are going through, and not from a ghostly figure of the exile, in which we lodge all our fears, electoral interests, etc. ", reacted the Jesuit priest Philippe Demeestère. This attempt at mediation by the government must be the "opportunity" to enter into a dialogue to name what "we no longer want to see: it is unacceptable to leave children chattering their teeth in the jungles," he said. he added, specifying that "the hunger strike continues for the moment".

In a joint statement, 150 associations joined on Tuesday the demands of the three hunger strikers, to demand the "suspension of daily evictions" from the camps on the north coast, the "stop of the confiscation of tents and personal effects of exiled persons ”, as well as the opening of a“ reasoned ”dialogue between the State and associations, some of which have not been authorized for months to distribute food in the city center of Calais.

"Every day counts now"

"The hunger strikers at Saint-Pierre church (...) put their health at stake. Every day now counts, and we urge the authorities to respond to these three requests favorably and without delay," the associations wrote. and NGOs including Amnesty International or Secours Catholique-Caritas France, calling for "an immediate end to inhuman and degrading treatment against people exiled in this border area".

"The situation in the north is indeed still very tense, because many people still want to cross the Channel for the United Kingdom", confirmed Tuesday before the National Assembly Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate in particular in charge of asylum and the integration.

"We must not fall into the caricature, there are indeed dismantled camps to shelter people in reception centers", she added, stressing that more than 13,000 people were put to death. the shelter in Pas-de-Calais since 2017.