Calais migrant eviction under way

[Heidi]

Source: BBC

Tuesday, 22 September 2009 06:47 UK

French police have begun an operation to dismantle a makeshift camp set up by migrants near the port of Calais.

Officials had vowed that the camp, known as "the jungle", would be demolished by the end of the week.

The camp has been home to up to 1,500 migrants - although most had left in the face of the operation

<snip>

About 300 migrants were still in the camp as the operation began early on Tuesday.

Our correspondent says that overnight the inhabitants put up banners saying "please don't destroy our jungle - this is our home" but she says they seem resigned to their eviction.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8268028.stm

[Turborama]

1. The whole thing is a fiasco

These immigrants are mostly economic and that camp is a pit stop on the way to Britain, they admit this openly themselves. If they were refugees seeking humanitarian assistance, why are they setting up camps like this on the northern French coast instead of applying for asylum in France? And, how come the French aren't giving them the housing that that these people say they are going to get in Britain?

[aquart]

3. What makes them think they can get into Britain?

[LeftishBrit]

15. Maybe their traffickers told them they could.

Not that it's remotely likely that they could, knowing the British attitude to non-EU immigrants. Though as we helped to fuck up Afghanistan even more than it was fucked up already, perhaps we *do* have rather more of a duty there than the French do.

[tocqueville]

4. they are illegal

but not deportable. The only solution is transit camps. They are not interested in staying in France, because the UK can provide them with "black" jobs no papers asked.
It's like illegal Mexicans were gathering to the Canadian border and the US couldn't deport them to a civil war Mexico. Besides they can apply for asylum, but most of them don't want to.

[T_i_B]

2. And we already have a hysterical Dail Mail front page on the subject this morning

You'd think thay would have got bored with immigrant bashing by now.

[Nihil]

5. Mind you, given the amount of screaming they've done on the subject ...

... it's a shame that there is still a steady stream of illegal immigrants
coming in ...

:shrug:

The danger of the government's "open-door"/"blind-eye"/"bloody incompetent"
attitude is that it simply feeds the extremists - you know, the ones that
*don't* like to admit that there are legal immigrants who have the same rights
as they do.

If you keep stacking flammable materials near a smouldering remnant of a
past fire you are likely to get a nasty surprise at some point.

[Blue_Tires]

18. yeah, i read the comments on the daily mail...

i understood their point, of course, but they had a disturbing way of putting it...

[Blue_Tires]

6. so what will happen to them now?

and would it be that much harder for them to make a living in France?

[UndertheOcean]

7. I wonder how long will it take Europe to execute another holocaust .

Their is much to admire about Europe , but they are still very ethnically non diverse.

[WriteDown]

12. Think this probably qualifies under Godwin's law....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[WriteDown]

8. French police bulldoze immigrant camp near Calais

Source: AP

French police cleared out, then bulldozed, a squalid forest camp near the northern city of Calais on Tuesday, detaining hundreds of illegal immigrants who had hoped to slip across the English Channel into Britain.

French Immigration Minister Eric Besson called the site — known as "the Jungle" — a "base camp for human traffickers" who promise the migrants passage for enormous fees or dump them there after bringing them across Europe.

"The law of the jungle cannot last eternally," Besson said. "A state of law must be re-established in Calais."

The people who camped here — mainly immigrants from Afghanistan — have strained relations between Britain and France and become a symbol of Europe's struggle with illegal immigration.

A total of 278 people, nearly half of them minors, were detained in the first part of the operation, said Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, the top official for the Pas-de-Calais region...

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113051069

---

The French are light years ahead of us when it comes to looking out for their own citizens.

[kiva]

9. Apparently there was also concern from

the Brits, so this was also a bit of good PR for that relationship.

[WriteDown]

10. Generally a good idea to keep your...

neighbors happy. :)

[Lena inRI]

11. Agreed. . .

. . .I think this is so because historically French associations and societies (like our unions), among both labor and university students, have been loyally SOLID and they use effective protest methods like the GENERAL STRIKE.

http://www.pitt.edu/~heinisch/ca_fran.html

Americans are easily fooled and distracted. . .don't care to trace the causes for that.

Hey, maybe Obama Team's strategy is to finally jolt the American public into seeing how pathetically behind we are compared to France and several other Western nations.

Team Obama has to educate American yahoos kicking and screaming. . .like spoiled children.

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. What a comparatively enlightened bunch. n/t

[2Design]

13. so they are from afgan and other middle east countries - so how is our bombing working for them

seems our uninvited wars are causing major problems in europe

[WriteDown]

14. Apparently not bad enough that they want to apply for

French asylum or any other countries that they passed through.

[mamaleah]

17. Oh and here I thought we were the only country who doesn't roll

out the red carpet for illegal immigrants.

Why are they camping out there anyway? Who has told them either the French or British government would take them in?