a parliamentary report judges state policy and rendered ineffective
The parliamentary committee of inquiry on migration, taken over by the deputy Sébastien Nadot, estimates that the management of the migration issue in Calais cost the State 120 million euros in 2020.
Five after the dismantling of the Calais jungle, migratory pressure is still as strong on the Opal Coast. This Tuesday, yet another migrant camp was dismantled in Grande-Synthe and 650 migrants were evacuated. An almost daily reality in the territories concerned. According to the Observatory for expulsions from informal living spaces, “between November 1, 2020 and October 31, 2021, 1,330 expulsions were recorded in mainland France”.
It was on the same day that the parliamentary commission of inquiry on migration published its report. For six months, around thirty deputies investigated the field and produced a document of more than 100 pages, which notably addressed the question of the Calais coast.
Around 121 million euros spent by France for Calais in 2020
According to the report, the management of the migration issue for the city of Calais alone cost France 121 million euros net, for the year 2020 (after deduction of 40 million euros in aid from the British authorities). Among this figure, the State spent 96 million euros, the city and the agglomeration a little more than one million euros, the companies Getlink (ex-Eurotunnel) and the company operating the ports of the strait 24 million euros.
A figure that the rapporteur, the deputy of the left wing of LaREM Sonia Krimi considers “high and unbalanced”. Indeed, “85% of the expenses incurred finance the security of the territories, 15% are dedicated to the health, social or humanitarian care of migrant populations”.
In addition, this budget corresponds to four times the annual cost of the 3,136 places open throughout France in reception and situation assessment centers (CAES) to shelter asylum seekers and analyze their situation. administrative.
Insufficient shelter arrangements
Quoting the national consultative commission on human rights, the report adds that “the exiled people are exhausted in wandering, constantly in search of makeshift shelters and means of survival in increasingly unsanitary, more isolated places. , and thus more dangerous “.
Admittedly, the State has set up in recent years various reception, accommodation and guidance structures for asylum seekers. In a press release published on Tuesday on the dismantling of the Grande-Synthe camp, the prefecture of the North suggests that since the beginning of the year, 6,170 people on the northern coast have been sheltered, in the centers of ” reception and orientation (CAO), reception and administrative situation examination centers (CAES), social hotels, or even in the overnight accommodation SAS recently created in Calais and which can accommodate up to to 300 people on a temporary basis.
But according to the latest report from the Observatory for evictions from informal living spaces, “these rare proposals made to the evicted people only have the consequence of postponing the return to the streets of the people”.
Negotiate an agreement between England and the European Union
Moreover, the rapporteur considers that even the securing and multiplication of dismantling operations on the Calais coast “do not deter exiled people from wanting to try the luck for England”.
It therefore recommends, like the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), “to install small living units along the coast” equipped with water, food and care, pending a lasting agreement. negotiated with England.
In this regard, the report recommends leaving the Franco-British relationship to negotiate a comprehensive agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom with cumulative participation of the country of destination.