Calais migrant aid groups claim Britons are being ‘singled out’ with police intimidation

Migrant aid workers in Calais are being intimidated and harassed by French police, with Britons singled out in some cases, according to a report submitted to France’s independent human rights watchdog.

Four aid associations on the northern French port, including the British group Help Refugees, published a report on Wednesday detailing 600 incidents against volunteers they said occurred between November 2017 and July 2018.

Citing 33 testimonies, the report listed 37 incidents of physical violence, including police pushing aid workers to the ground, confiscating phones and forcing people away from food distribution points.

Other incidents include repeated identity checks and stop and searches, arbitrary parking fines, threats, and insults.

British volunteers were in some cases being singled out by French police who were preventing them from giving out food and water, according to the report. Those with British passports or British vehicles were barred entry to an area near Dunkirk to distribute meals to homeless refugees and migrants, it asserted.

“British volunteers have been specifically targeted, particularly over aid distribution around Dunkirk. This is extremely concerning. It seems completely arbitrary and the authorities have no legal right to stop and target British volunteers,” said Maddy Allen, the Help Refugees field manager in France.

The report also complained of “physical barriers” being erected to prevent aid workers reaching distribution areas to help homeless refugees or migrants.

However, state and local authorities vehemently denied the report’s allegations or any mistreatment.

The Pas-de-Calais prefect’s office said: “Associations are free to exercise their activities regarding the migrant population in Calais as long as their intervention respects public order and the law." 

It added: ”Anyone who feels they have been witness or victim of a breach [by police] can go to the justice and administrative authorities… No conviction or accusation relating to these allegations had been made.”

Natacha Bouchart, Calais’s mayor, denounced the allegations as “baseless” and “hateful and slanderous towards security forces”, coming from associations that “are acting for purely media and political ends”.

Calais’ sprawling “Jungle” camp was razed in October 2016 and migrants bussed to welcome centres around France, but a few hundred have returned, with the figures officially at 350 to 400 people. 

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