Bernard Cazeneuve lambasted one of his fellow ministers yesterday for suggesting the return of British frontier controls from Calais to Kent — but there is no doubt that pressure on the French government to relieve the pressure on its Channel coast is rising.
The interior minister accused Emmanuel Macron, the economy minister, who this week predicted an end to the Calais barrier, of publicity seeking. “If we open the border tomorrow, what will happen? The British, who run their own border, will block [the migrants] and send them back,” Mr Cazeneuve said. He insisted that French policy was working, after a week in which half of the Jungle camp at Calais was demolished and migrants encouraged to accept shelter elsewhere in France, in the knowledge that reaching Britain was impossible.
The enforced departure of refugees from their shantytown, amid images of burning huts and riot police firing tear gas at bedraggled families, stirred emotions around the world.
The migrants blame Britain. “You don’t help us,” said Mohamed, 33, an Afghan who fled in 2014. “Why is my country in a mess? It’s because of you guys — the British and the Americans. You have a responsibility for helping us now.”
There are signs that the clampdown in Calais is simply shifting the problem, with the number of stowaways found at the Normandy port of Cherbourg tripling this year.
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A British vote to leave the EU could leave the French far less willing to corral migrants on the Channel coast, at heavy cost — and President Hollande said as much after meeting David Cameron in nearby Amiens on Thursday.
The Calais crisis, which has all but killed tourism in the coastal town and damaged life for its permanent inhabitants, is playing into regional politics before presidential and parliamentary elections next year. Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right Republicans, who are expected to win national power, are eager to woo voters back from the far-right National Front. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, is campaigning to end French indulgence of Britain on the issue. Xavier Bertrand, the conservative president of the region and a former Sarkozy cabinet minister, is demanding an end to the 2003 Le Touquet accord that established British security controls at Calais.
The re-election of the deeply unpopular Mr Hollande or any other Socialist next year is improbable— and the expected arrival of a conservative government, under Mr Sarkozy or a rival, is likely to make France less willing still to accommodate Britain’s border needs, even without a vote to leave the EU.
Borderline decisions
•British frontier controls were set up at Calais under the 1991 Sangatte accord that covered people travelling through the Channel tunnel, which opened in 1994.
•The “juxtaposed” controls, under which British and French border officers operate in the other’s Channel transit point, were extended to cover ferry services between Dover and Calais and Dunkirk in 2003. This Le Touquet deal, negotiated by Nicolas Sarkozy and David Blunkett as interior ministers, was a response to the accumulation of would-be migrants at Sangatte. The Red Cross centre was closed and migrants began living rough around Calais. The numbers were manageable until the upheavals in the Middle East which sent millions heading to Europe.
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•The Le Touquet agreement is Franco-British, with no EU involvement. It may be revoked by either side with two years’ notice.
•Removing British security at Calais would damage French interests because operators would be fined by Britain for transporting undocumented travellers and Britain would demand that France take back illegal arrivals.