French taxpayers are spending tens of thousands of euros a week on a private aeroplane that flies migrants from Calais to other French towns, only for most to return.
The practice, revealed by StreetPress, a French investigative website, has been condemned as an extraordinary waste of public money.
French border police argue that it is necessary to move the migrants because their station in Coquelles, near Eurotunnel’s terminal outside Calais, has space for only 79 people in its cells.
Their response involves using a Beechcraft 1900 plane to fly migrants to other border police stations in towns such as Perpignan and Nîmes in southern France, and Metz in eastern France. Some are then released and can return to Calais by train, on which the state operator, SNCF, offers them free travel.
The aircraft can only transport five migrants at a time. StreetPress estimates that the daily cost of the operation is €23,000.
Advertisement
The Interior Ministry defended using the plane, saying that it was cheaper than moving migrants by road.