Country of origin, routes of smugglers, right of asylum … the migration situation in Calais in four questions
27 dead, including women and children, mostly from Iranian Kurdistan. And only two survivors. On November 24, the deadliest shipwreck in recent years in the English Channel involved a migrant canoe. This disaster threw a terrible spotlight on the migratory drama that unfolds almost daily between France and the English coasts, more than five years after the dismantling of the Calais jungle. Wednesday afternoon, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, was heard by the senatorial commission of laws. With a lot of figures, he drew up a precise picture of the migratory situation in Calais. A situation complicated by tensions between Great Britain, Paris and, more generally, the European Union since Brexit.
How to explain the increase in the number of crossings while the number of migrants has decreased?
Crossings in “small boats”, ie small boats, generally inflatable, have increased by 185% in two years. And this while there are about 2,000 migrants, massed between Grande-Synthe and Calais. “There were fifteen times as many five years ago,” notes Gérald Darmanin. This paradox can be explained by the surveillance accumulated around the old crossing points, namely the port of Boulogne, that of Calais, of Ouistreham, or the Channel Tunnel. “There is only one way to go to England and that’s to take a boat and try to cross the Channel. “
The literal area between Bray-Dunes and Dunkirk alone represents a third of departures in “small boats”, but some migrants do not hesitate to go further south to escape controls, sometimes as far as the Breton coast, and embark in the direction of England, which makes their journey even more dangerous. The minister also recalled that the arm of the sea between England and France concentrates, despite its thirty kilometers, the greatest number of passages of boats in the world, because of the traffic in direction or coming from the Hanseatic ports, this which increases the risk of collision.
The number of people on the boats is also increasing. The average between 2019 and 2021 of the number of passengers embarked on these makeshift boats has more than doubled: from a dozen to more than twenty.
Where do these migrants come from?
“Apart from the Vietnamese, most of the migrants who wish to go to England come from countries at war or who are experiencing great political destabilization”, explains Gérald Darmanin, who quotes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea. “There are climatic, economic and political difficulties at the same time. “
Two major access roads to England have been identified. One via the Horn of Africa, with a passage through the Mediterranean, via Libya or Tunisia, then Italy and France. The second from the Middle East, via Turkey, Greece and Italy or, in recent months, via Belarus. “The migrants leave from Iraq to Syria, take a plane which brings them to Minsk, then from Minsk to Poland, Germany and then France”, explains the Minister of the Interior. The trip lasts an average of three weeks, entire sections, especially between Belarus and Poland, are often done on foot.
These trips are entirely organized by the passengers, and cost migrants close to tens of thousands of euros. Sometimes, for people from countries at war or victims of famine, savings of a lifetime. Thus, one of the two survivors of the sinking of November 24 had paid 5,500 euros to get from Damascus to Dunkirk, then another 3,200 euros for the only crossing of the Channel, indicated Gérald Darmanin.
Who are the smugglers?
“The nationalities of traffickers are often the same as those of migrants. This complicates the work of the authorities, ”points out the tenant of Place Beauvau. “These are often networks of people who, from Baghdad to London, take care of all the traffic. “Or,” one of the main difficulties is to be able to trace these sectors. “
There are generally two types of networks: Iraqi-Kurdish networks and those from the Horn of Africa. “The first are very structured and very violent, the second more artisanal and community-based, but they end up with the same thing, that is to say people paid for trafficking in human beings. “
162 suspected pastors have been arrested since January and 41 criminal organizations dismantled, the minister reported. To facilitate the work of investigators, a Franco-British cooperation unit has been set up in Coquelle, on the outskirts of Calais. But in a context of strong tensions between Paris and London, the collaboration between the teams “could work better”, admits Gérald Darmanin. “When we call on the British for identification of UK telephone numbers, we have no answer. Maybe they don’t want it to be known that a large part of the smugglers are in their country. “
Why the UK?
Several factors explain the attractiveness of the United Kingdom. The first: the flexibility of labor law. “You can work and pay taxes in England without having papers. This is not the case on European territory, ”recalls Gérald Darmanin. In addition, “the English do not expel practically anyone. They deport 6,000 people a year for 1.2 million illegal immigrants. The risk of being returned to the country of origin is therefore minimal.
Another element, far from being negligible, concerns family reunification. The migrants who congregate on the northern coasts generally belong to communities already settled on the other side of the Channel. “England is where a large part of their families are now. There is nothing stronger than the link to find someone, this is one of our problems, ”notes Gérald Darmanin. “We could offer them the best social conditions in the world, the maternal, family or love bond will prevail over all other considerations.” Thus, the government estimates that 62% of migrants crossing the Channel are eligible for asylum, but only 3% of them file an application in France.
“Great Britain could accept that there is migratory exchanges, but it could for that a treaty”, adds the Minister of the Interior.