Europe 1 with AFP 12:12 p.m., February 11, 2022
A police operation took place on Friday morning to evacuate anti-border activists from a building near the center of Calais.
They had occupied this place for several days.
They demanded better treatment of migrants and "freedom of movement".
The Raid intervened Friday morning to ensure the evacuation of a building not far from the center of Calais, occupied for several days by anti-border activists demanding better treatment of migrants and "freedom of movement", noted a journalist. from AFP.
More than a dozen police officers were dropped off during overflights of a gendarmerie helicopter on the roof of this disused social building slated for demolition.
In police custody for violence against persons responsible for public order
The operation took place without incident, the occupants having "left the premises", probably alerted by the overflight of the helicopter, said in a press briefing the departmental director of public security Benoît Desferet.
They were then "twenty" according to the prefecture.
A person was arrested for identity verification, said Mr. Desferet, adding that the police would continue their checks "on all the individuals who could be concerned at the level of the city center".
Three young men and a young girl, including a Belgian national, were also in police custody on Friday, arrested Thursday evening for violence against persons responsible for public order, said the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor's office.
"Groups of individuals" then "targeted the police by throwing projectiles", according to the prefecture.
Hooded demonstrators
At the start of the operation, around forty demonstrators, hooded and dressed in black, tried to regroup at the bottom of the building, quickly dispersed by tear gas fire, according to the AFP journalist.
The police intervened after a court decision ordering the evacuation, on a request for interim relief from the social landlord Terre d'Opale Habitat to the Boulogne-sur-Mer court, said the prefecture.
A participant calling herself "Sam" told AFP that the occupation was launched on February 3 by some 40 activists "in solidarity with exiles" to protest against the treatment of migrants on the coast. northern France and create a "safe space" to welcome them.
An area guarded by law enforcement
The hundreds of candidates for exile to the United Kingdom in transit in Calais are regularly dislodged from their makeshift camps by the police, the authorities wishing to avoid any perpetuation of their installation.
"Sam" denounced an "illegal" eviction, saying that a bailiff dispatched on Tuesday had refused to take the identity of the occupants when they had in particular "an electricity contract and home insurance".
The prefecture for its part indicated that the building had been "illegally occupied since February 7" by "people of different nationalities: French, British, Italian and Dutch, claiming to be from the no-border movement".
The police had been banning access to the building since Tuesday, described by the prefecture as "dilapidated and particularly dangerous", preventing the occupants from being supplied, while the electricity had been cut off, according to an activist.
"The area will remain guarded by law enforcement to repel any resettlement attempt," the prefecture said.