- Title: FRANCE: BRITAIN AND FRANCE AGREE THAT SANGATTE REFUGEE CAMP COULD CLOSE NEXT YEAR
- Date: 12th July 2002
- Summary: (U5) PARIS, FRANCE (JULY 12, 2002) (REUTERS) 1. DAVID BLUNKETT'S CAR ARRIVING AT THE INTERIOR MINISTRY 2. BLUNKETT GETTING OUT OF CAR AND GREETED BY FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER NICOLAS SARKOZY/HANDSHAKE/BOTH MINISTERS ENTERING BUILDING 3. ROUNDTABLE WITH SARKOZY AND BLUNKETT SEATED SIDE BY SIDE AND OTHER MEMBERS OF DELEGATIONS
- Embargoed: 27th July 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS AND SANGATTE, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVAC4L99MBCE6RHYBCK9S0GYNKC6
- Story Text: France and Britain have agreed that the controversial
Sangatte refugee camp could close by the end of the first
quarter next year providing Britain implements legislation to
discourage illegal immigration.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and British
Home Secretary David Blunkett held talks on Friday (July 12)
in order to reach an agreement over a refugee camp which has
soured relations between the two countries.
Both ministers agreed that the Sangatte centre will close
three to six months after new laws and policies come into
force in the UK.
Both ministers said schedules for closure of the camp near
the French entrance to the Channel Tunnel would be confirmed
during another meeting of British Home Secretary David
Blunkett and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy at the
site in September.
Blunkett said that by choking-off the route, a strong
message would go out to those behind illegal immigration.
"That message, together with the closure of Sangatte, is
the most powerful way in which we can tell individuals and
organized
criminals who are trafficking them, there is no longer a
method, a gateway and avenue for getting into the U.K.," he
told the conference.
Scores of asylum seekers at the camp, which houses around
1,200 Afghans and Kurds, launch nightly sorties to the nearby
channel tunnel rail terminal and try to board freight trains
heading to Britain.
France has been threatened by the European Commission with
legal action for failing to ensure free movement of goods
through the tunnel due to security problems at the camp. It
has promised to restore rail traffic to normal by November.
Sarkozy, a straight-talker known as the security tsar of
President Jacques Chirac, has said the deadlock was poisoning
relations between London and Paris. He insists that the camp
can only be closed if Britain toughens its immigration laws.
However, he said this week that France had accepted a
United
Nations offer to mediate in the row over the Red Cross camp,
which London complains is a jumping-off point for illegal
immigrants travelling to Britain.
"Today we can envisage the closure of Sangatte between the
last quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003," Sarkozy
told a news conference after his meeting with Blunkett.
He announced a series of other measures which involved
tightening security at the French end of the Channel Tunnel.
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