Calais: the border so far, so close by Louis Witter
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Calais, in Hauts-de-France, has been changing for almost thirty years. Barriers, barbed wire, cameras: the city has become a veritable fortress, a French symbol of the European fight against immigration. Depending on the month and the season, between 800 and 1,500 people survive daily in small, unsanitary camps, hoping to reach the British coast by truck or by sea. of makeshift exploded: more than 30,000 people were rescued off the coast of the United Kingdom and, on November 24, 2021, twenty-seven people died in the sinking of their embarkation. France, for its part, is trying to dissuade people from staying in the department by mobilizing hundreds of police and gendarmes. A policy to fight against “fixation points” encouraged since 2017 by the government and which results in daily evictions from living places, “harassment policy” for the many associations working on this border.