FRANCE: French riot police evacuate Calais immigrant camps

Record ID: 347160

  • Title: FRANCE: French riot police evacuate Calais immigrant camps
  • Date: 28th May 2014
  • Summary: PLEASE NOTE THIS EDIT SHOWS GENERAL VIEWS OF CAMPS IN CALAIS AND NOT THE DISMANTLING OF WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2014 CALAIS, FRANCE (MAY 15, 2014) (REUTERS) SIGN READING CALAIS CARS ON STREET MIGRANTS WAITING ON SIDE OF ROAD LEADING TO FERRY PORT MIGRANTS RUNNING AND JUMPING ONTO A LORRY HEADED TO FERRY PORT MIGRANTS HIDING IN BUSHES MIGRANTS SITTING ON GROUND AND WAITING FOR
  • Embargoed: 12th June 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: International Relations,People
  • Reuters ID: LVAE61QY2Z52RO2NA8J4CW974US4
  • Story Text: French riot police started evacuating three campsites housing hundreds of immigrants in the northern port town of Calais on Wednesday (May 28), days after the anti-immigrant National Front party hammered the ruling Socialists in a European election.
    The evictions, denounced by local rights organisations, had been announced by a local government prefect a week earlier - before Sunday's election drubbing - on the grounds that the makeshift camps posed problems for public health and safety.
    Calais has for years attracted floods of immigrants who flee poverty or conflict in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them hoping to cross the narrow sea channel to Britain by ferry or the sub-sea train tunnel.
    Many of the estimated 600-800 immigrants living in the three camps had moved out before the well-publicised evacuation ordered by Denis Robin, prefect for the Pas-de-Calais region.
    The operation came on the heels of the European Parliament elections, where the National Front took one in four votes to come first ahead of the mainstream centre-right opposition party and, in third place, the ruling Socialist Party.
    Pas-de-Calais lies in north-west France where the FN won 34 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, one of its best tallies and a tripling of its score from the 2009 EU election.
    The FN has long campaigned for a dramatic reduction in immigration and opposes the "Schengen" borderless zone at the heart of the 28-member European Union.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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