Thursday September 4, 2014
'It would be illegal,' Natacha Bouchart says, 'but today I want to make a strong gesture towards the UK'
Migrants gather at a charity feeding station just outside central Calais.
The mayor of Calais has threatened to blockade the northern French ferry port if Britain fails to provide more financial support to tackle thousands of migrants seeking to reach the UK illegally.
Nathalie Bouchart, the centre-Right Calais mayor, said she may order such “illegal” action unless Britain makes a “strong response” to help deal with a rising tide of migrants from war-torn countries including Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan who sleep rough and try nightly to stow away in lorries and ferries. These still view Britain as an “Eldorado”, she insisted.
The migrant issue costs Calais 10 million euros per year, the mayor claimed.
“I can take the decision to block the port. I have ways of exerting pressure,” Miss Bouchart said after a meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister on Tuesday night in which both agreed to open a new day centre for all migrants and a night shelter for migrant women and children.
“(A blockade) would be illegal, but I want a strong response today from the British,” said Miss Bouchart, who accused the Conservative Government of demanding tough security in the port while washing its hands financially.
“For the past ten years, there has been zero response from the British Government. Today, it’s an emergency, so we expect at the very least them to say they have received the message, that they are coming to see for themselves and that they will at least offer compensation,” she said.
Mr Cazenueve, who met Teresa May, the Home Secretary last Friday, in London, also asked her to “participate financially to secure the port”.
The Calais mayor said that Mr Cazeneuve had agreed to a night shelter for women and children migrants, as well as a day centre, probably in a children's summer camp three miles from Calais.
But he refused to consider her plea for an overnight unit for 400 adults, which he said would act as a “magnet” – an accusation leveled against the notorious Sangatte centre, shut in 2002.
Around 1,300 Asians and Africans are squatting and sleeping rough around the port, with the numbers rising weekly, particularly from Eritrea.