In Calais, visiting politicians, migrants forced to flee – Liberation
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A few months before the presidential election, the city is the subject of a security escalation maintained by the right, the extreme right and the fierce directives of the government, against a backdrop of conflict with the British authorities.
The presidential campaign has barely been launched and we are already jostling in Calais. Since the start of the school year, the theme of immigration has been – unsurprisingly – at the heart of the debates on TV sets, with the almost candidate Eric Zemmour as conductor. When the controversies are transposed to reality, it is quite naturally that the coastal town of Pas-de-Calais, hot spot on the Franco-British border, becomes the epicenter of political life, against a backdrop of the migratory crisis. It was expected: from the Sangatte camp in 2002, to the Calais “jungle”, these symbolic places are systematically the subject of calculated visits during the election period.
Jordan Bardella, the first, chose this destination as the starting point of a fifty-day tour to launch the National Rally (RN) campaign, just a week ago. No coincidence: the MEP and vice-president of the RN notably went to the Total service station at the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles, completely walled in and overhung with barbed wire, a symbol of the security policy on the coast. “When there are no borders outside, we come to create them inside. […] I went here to discuss our measures to put an end to this migratory submersion which has lasted too long ”, he said in a video …