New eviction of displaced people surviving in the city center of Calais
While Calais lights up and offers its inhabitants the opportunity to celebrate the end of the year holidays, there will be no truce at Christmas for several hundred displaced people living under the bridges of the city. Natacha Bouchart, mayor of Calais, has initiated eviction proceedings against them via a summary motion judged during a hearing at the Lille administrative court on December 23, 2020 at 2:30 p.m.
Faced with a series of relentless and brutal evictions from their living sites in recent months, and faced with the installation of fences or the deforestation of entire areas of the city in order to prevent any settlement, many people have been forced to take refuge under the bridges of the city of Calais. These people, who, for the most part, have already gone through numerous evictions are once again, through this operation, under the threat of yet another violation of their fundamental rights .
Taking note of the situation of these people without access to electricity, running water or waste collection, the municipal authorities are, acoording to them, obliged to order this eviction measure in the name of respect, in particular, for the “ human dignity".
We can only agree with them. The situation of those in exile, including children, surviving under these bridges or in wasteland is outrageous . However, we know that no forced evictions, fencing, deforestation or coercive measures will restore any dignity .
The dignity for which we are pleading involves offering shelter based on free will, full information as well as a social diagnosis making it possible to understand the situation of people and therefore to offer them an adapted solution. The dignity for which we plead also supposes adapted, continuous and unconditional accommodation solutions in Calais or nearby, offering real alternatives to precariousness and being constantly on the move. Respect for this dignity requires, finally, to formulate real proposals for settlement in France or legal access to the United Kingdom, the only ones capable of providing a lasting solution to the situation of displaced people present in Calais.
In the name of this same dignity, and to plead the cause of more humane solutions,We will stand in support and solidarity with the people affected by this measure in the administrative court when they try to defend their right to life, once again hampered by operations going against all humanity .
Signatory Organisations
L'Auberge des Migrants
Secours Catholique
Choose Love
Human Right Observers
Refugee Women's Center
Collective Aid
Doctors of the World
Calais Food Collective
Cabane Juridique
Utopia 56
Salam - Nord Pas de Calais
In Calais, the eviction saga continues
Yesterday morning, 22 October 2020, the prefecture of Pas de Calais proceeded again to the eviction and massive destruction of a camp. It was the place called "Unicorn jungle", where nearly 300 displaced people were living, according to the distribution of tents made by Utopia 56, one week before. Once again, the associations denounce the brutality and inefficiency of these operations. They do not respect the fundamental rights of people.
The associations denounce the violation of the right to come and go of the displaced persons. Once again, a dozen buses had been chartered to take them to an unknown destination. The authorities proceeded to a "sheltering" operation of at least 190 people.
A "sheltering operation" of men, but also of women and children.
The uselessness of this "sheltering" operation can be seen, in particular, in the frequency of these operations.
The associations denounce the forced nature of these operations. From 7:20 am, the police forces arrived with their usual armada (national gendarmerie, national police, border police, BAC, ...). The consent and the will of the evicted persons is absolutely not taken into consideration. In fact, a real manhunt was carried out to try to make them disappear. The process is always the same: when a bus arrives, the people are encircled and escorted by the police, preventing them from leaving.
The associations denounce the violation of peoples' right to property. The people are evicted without even being able to take the time to gather their belongings, which are confiscated or thrown away. Several hours after the operation, the violence can still be felt when you go to the camp. A pan of rice still full is on the fire, shoes are lying around, a tent, water cans, a little girl's T-shirt, a blanket, ...
The associations denounce the lack of respect for the right to private and family life of displaced persons. The Human Rights Observers team was able to report on a striking scene during which the police refused to allow a man to join his family on a bus.
The associations denounce the absence of the right to be heard (in law, the adversarial principle). Indeed, several hours later, a single page of the order on request is conspicuously displayed in the middle of the living site. This is the legal basis for the eviction with an authorisation to use public force. This procedure makes it possible to override the right of displaced people to be heard. The same reasons are used each time: public health, public security and public order problems.
Once again, the associations denounce the brutality and inefficiency of these operations. The associations denounce the violation of the fundamental rights of the evicted persons, not exhaustively listed.
Signatory Organisations
La Cabane Juridique
L'Auberge des migrants
First Aid Support
Team Salam
11 displaced persons supported by 8 associations take the prefect of the Pas-De-Calais to court after the illegal eviction of their living site
Through this procedure ('assignation devant le tribunal de Boulogne-sur-Mer') Mohammed1 and the other applicants are asking that "the decision-makers, the governments in France and in Europe, look at us with the eye of dignity and fraternity". They will be represented by lawyer Me Thieffry at a hearing scheduled for 18 November.
In Calais, on 29 September 2020, the Prefect of the Pas-de-Calais department evicted the so-called "Hospital" site, where more than 800 displaced people, including women, men and children, were living, using public force.
Mohammed, an applicant and witness to the eviction, explains: "From the first day we were in the camp next to the hospital, the police started to harass us and take our tents. On 28 September, volunteers came to tell us that the police intended to abolish the camp and evict those who were there. Some people took this seriously and left the camp that evening to sleep under bridges, in the middle of the forest or by the sea. I was one of those who left.
On 29 September, I woke up in the cold morning near the camp. I observed a terrible number of police around the camp, many buses and media cameras. Hundreds of refugees were led by the police to the eviction buses like animals. The scene was terrifying, and although my friends and I watched from a distance, we left our field out of fear, and took a very bumpy road so that no one would see us. We spent a whole day without food and in the rain, moving from place to place for fear of being arrested.
Photo credit: Paloma Laudet. On September 29, 2020, the gendarmerie chases people during the eviction of the so-called "Hospital" living site.
We tried to look for the points where the associations were distributing food for two days but we couldn't find them because the police prevented them from doing so. I remembered the days of the Gaza war when we spent our days without food but we are in France and we are not at war, so what is going on?
On 2 October, on the third day of the eviction of the camp near the hospital, my friends and I were in three tents among the thick trees. We woke up to the sound of a drone overhead. We were very worried and tried to look for another place to sleep but could not find one. Under the bridges, many young men were sleeping and there was no room.
We returned to the same place, but woke up to the shouts of heavily armed soldiers, and the sound of rain drowning our tents: "Wake up, the police are surrounding you". They took us out of the tents, without us being able to take our belongings, to take us by bus to a town an hour away from Calais. They put us in a centre where there were no services, so the director of the centre told us, as soon as the police left, "you can now go back to where you came from, we can't receive you for more than three days".
We returned to Calais, and I looked for a new and safer place under a thorn bush. I slept alone so as not to attract anyone's attention. I asked my friends at Care4Calais for help and they gave me a tent and blankets to protect me from the cold. Many others slept with pieces of cardboard without heat because the police prevented the associations from providing them with any help. I sometimes have the impression that refugees, like us, will not rest until they are dead."
On the basis of direct testimonies and observations, displaced people and associations decided to take the Prefect of Pas-de-Calais to court following this eviction. This eviction took place outside of any legal framework and once again flouts the most fundamental rights of displaced people.
The prefect of Pas de Calais invoked "flagrante delicto" as the legal basis(2) for this eviction. However, this procedure allows for the collection of evidence in the context of an investigation, but does not authorise the eviction of people deemed "undesirable"3. The decision to carry out the forced eviction of the Hospital site using public force was therefore taken by the Prefect of Pas-de-Calais without having the power to do so.
Secondly, this eviction, presented as a "sheltering operation", does not respect any of its principles. It is therefore urgent to remember that sheltering cannot be carried out under duress. However, the contested eviction resulted in the requisition of an armada of public forces (national gendarmerie, CRS, national police, border police, ... ), the obligation, in the early hours of the morning and without any prior information, to board buses to accommodation centres far from Calais (Toulouse, Nice, Brest, where 340 people were actually taken), the encirclement of the evicted area by the police forces, the cordoning off of the perimeter preventing the intervention of humanitarian associations from 6am to 1pm, the arrest of people refusing to board the buses (22 people, including 5 minors, were arrested), etc. Several evicted people spoke of a "manhunt" to characterise the chases with the police which aimed to get them on the buses.
At a time when we are in the midst of a health crisis, this eviction, like those that continue to follow it, has permanently worsened the survival conditions of displaced people in Calais. During the eviction, people's personal belongings (tents, blankets, papers, telephones, etc.) were confiscated and sometimes destroyed. The area where the people were settled was cleared and the police are now permanently present in order to prevent any new settlement, without at the same time any dignified, voluntary, unconditional shelter being offered to the people along the coast. Access to water and food, provided by the State services, has been largely degraded, while the teams of associations are regularly threatened or even prevented by the police from intervening in this area.
The Defender of Rights in October 2016 and then in December 2018, in relation to Calais, already recalled that a new evacuation could lead to accentuating the state of vulnerability of displaced persons already exhausted by a very difficult migratory journey and that the attempt to make them disappear, without dignified and lasting shelter, at the same time as their shelters would be futile4. In fact, today, the majority of those evicted are back in Calais in an even more destitute state.
While the prefect, Louis Le Franc, commented on the eviction by saying that he wanted to "avoid any new concentration and fixation point in Calais and [that] this area of Virval would be made inaccessible "5 , the result of this operation is a violation of the legal framework and an infringement of the essential rights of every human being.
Signatory Organisations
L’Auberge des Migrants
La Cabane Juridique
Fondation Abbé Pierre
Help Refugees
Refugee Rights Europe
Salam Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Secours Catholique Pas-de-Calais
Utopia 56
1 Name voluntarily changed to protect its anonymity.
2 Press release from the Pas-de-Calais Prefecture dated 29 September 2020.
3 Article 53 paragraph 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure defines flagrance.
4 Decision of the Defender of Rights dated 14 October 2016 n°2016-165.
5 "Dismantling of a large migrant camp in Calais" Le POINT, 29 September 2020.
In Calais, "the bigger the better"
In Calais, one week after the visit of the French Human Rights Defender, Madame Claire Hédon, and three days after the demonstration for the respect of the rights of exiled people, a large-scale eviction took place in the "Hospital jungle" without any official legal basis.
"Hospital", a wooded wasteland where almost 800 people of different nationalities live, the biggest jungle in Calais today, was evicted this morning.
The prefect speaks of the "most important" eviction since the big jungle in 2016 under the pretext of sheltering people. How can we talk about sheltering when it is forced, violent and ineffective? Indeed, the political strategy of scorched earth and harassment of the inhabitants put forward by the public authorities is a failure. Four years after the "big jungle", the context in Calais is the same, if not worse.
From 5.30am, an armada of law enforcement agencies (national gendarmerie, CRS, national police, border police, technical and scientific police, etc.) and nearly thirty buses with a capacity of 900 places, destined for 'shelter' centres, arrived at the camp. This is an unprecedented scale. For example, during the eviction of 21 August 2020, four buses were chartered. The people were surrounded, escorted off the field, placed in lines and blinded by flashlights in their faces by the police. Away from the field, some were tear-gassed in the forest of the camp. Nearly 340 people were brutally escorted onto buses, without knowing their destination, which can be anywhere in France, in accommodation centres that are anyway unsuitable. Others were taken away and locked up in administrative detention centres. At least 22 people, including 5 minors, were arrested: even the latter do not escape the operation.
Legally, the eviction was justified by the police as being based on "flagrante delicto", which allows for the collection of evidence in the context of an investigation, but does not authorise an eviction. If the eviction was based on a petition order, the petition order should have been posted publically: otherwise, the eviction is simply illegal. If the eviction was based on a prefectural evacuation order, this was not made public either.
The absence of an announcement of the legal basis de facto deprives the inhabitants of the land of their right to appeal to the judge to contest their eviction.
The police forces broke the tent poles, the few remaining belongings were taken away in a skip, or stored in a wet container. The associations tried to organise themselves to observe the eviction but were pushed back outside the closed perimeter by the police, while journalists, contacted by the prefecture, were invited to enter.
At 12.30 pm, the eviction was still not finished. However, at the same time, a new eviction took place at another living site, "BMX", far from the perimeter discretionarily imposed by the police. The inhabitants were brutalised, gassed and the volunteer observers were manhandled. The majority of the occupants of this field refused to get on the buses; all their shelters, tents, sleeping bags were seized. At 2.40pm, the eviction ended.
In nine hours, more than 800 people had been evicted, without them having had the opportunity to assert their rights.
Signatory Organisations
La Cabane Juridique
Human Rights Observers
First Aid Support Team
Collective Aid
Terre d’Errance
Project Play
Refugee Youth Service
30 July 2020 evictions in Calais
On 30 July 2020, the Pas de Calais prefecture carried out another eviction in the Dunes industrial zone.
In Calais, since the visit of Gérald Darmanin, forced, brutal and unnecessary evictions of camps are multiplying to the detriment of the fundamental rights of displaced people.
Once again, on the morning of 30 July 2020, at 6.42am, a large-scale eviction was scheduled. Eleven CRS vans, reinforced by several mobile gendarmerie vans, intervened to evict the people who had chosen Dubrule Wood, a modest plot of land wedged between several fenced off areas of the Dunes industrial zone, as their place of survival. Nearly 800 people had settled there since the series of dismantling operations that began on 10 July. Among the residents, some forty women, some of whom were pregnant, and a dozen young children, were indiscriminately affected by this forced eviction and its inevitable consequences.
On their arrival, the several dozen agents mobilised found only a deserted wood. The reason for this is that the people, scarred by the violence of the 10 July eviction, chose to move in advance (auto-eviction) in order to protect their personal belongings, their blankets and their tents, to avoid violence and also to avoid being forced to move to centres that will not provide a lasting solution to their situation. Disorientated and resigned to the increasing precariousness of their living conditions, settled on the sides of the roads on pieces of pavement, people expressed their distress to the associations: where to go? Where will the police let us live?
The acceleration of the policies of forced evictions and harassment since 10 July in anticipation of the visit of the Minister of the Interior on 12 July are concomitant with the iniquitous, inhumane and dangerous restriction of vital services such as access to water, food, hygiene and care. Yet this policy is as inhumane as it is unnecessary. Since 10 July, the number of people in exile in Calais has continued to rise. Despite the relentless evictions and dispersals, people are coming back and will come back. In the absence of permanent solutions, Calais will remain an unavoidable point of transit towards Great Britain, the only hope for the future for many, abandoned by the public authorities.
Signatory Organisations
L'Auberge Des Migrants
La Cabane Juridique
Collective Aid
Human Rights Observers
Refugee Rights Europe
Refugee Youth Service
Secours Catholique du Pas-de-Calais
Salam Nord/Pas-de-Calais
Utopia56
A number of eviction orders have been posted in living sites in the Dunes industrial zone in Calais
Between 20 April and 12 May, three eviction orders were posted in Calais, in the Dunes industrial zone; two were written only in French, the other in French and English, although these languages are not fully understood by the people living there. These orders are not an exception in Calais, they are added to all those adopted since March 2019: 11 times, the same judge has ordered the eviction of living sites in Calais by this means.
The ordonnance sur requête procedure is used by landlords to urgently request the eviction of land occupants. The decision is taken by a judge, after only presenting the owner's evidence. Without being summoned to appear before the judge, the inhabitants of the premises concerned have not had the opportunity to present their defence before the order is passed. Even though the rights of defence, as part of the right to a fair trial, are among the fundamental rights to which French justice must adhere. They are guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and by the French Constitution. The very procedure of the ordonnance sur requête violates the right to a fair trial, contrary to the prescriptions of the European Court of Human Rights.
This type of eviction is nothing more than the continuation of the government's policy of fighting against the points of fixation: "we have been dismantling them for 4 years, motivated by the observation of illegal occupations of other people's land", stated the public prosecutor of Boulogne sur Mer in response to an association's questioning1.
This struggle is reflected in the violence exercised against displaced people, including daily evictions from various living areas in Calais and Marck. As an illustration of this harassment, the inhabitants of several living sires targeted by these orders on request are already being evicted every 48 hours, without any coherent legal basis. These regular evictions continue despite the confinement and are totally inconsistent with the current health context. The current situation in which these people are left in all the camps in Calais constitutes a serious breach of the recommended emergency sanitary instructions; but also an attack on human dignity and the safety of others.
With these eviction orders, the French justice system is once again corroborating the incessant harassment of displaced persons. These evictions are a vector of physical and mental exhaustion for these people, and contribute to the policy of non-reception that is reserved for them.
The living sites of people in transit are increasingly restricted, as land evicted on the basis of a court order is fenced off and can no longer be inhabited. The eviction on 12 May2 is a case in point. While we strongly disagree with allowing people to live in indignity, we feel it is essential to warn that yet another eviction will not improve the situation of these people. The people who are going to be evicted will be condemned once again to being on the move. As opposed to a purely repressive policy, the State must find a dignified and sustainable solution in the interest of displaced people but also of all the inhabitants of Calais.
This is why we join the people affected by these orders, who demand:
- an end to the daily evictions and police violence against them
- the opening of safe and legal channels of movement within the European Union, which requires the end of the Le Touquet agreements and the denunciation of the Dublin III regulation
Signatory Organisations
Auberge des Migrants
Cabane Juridique
Collective Aid
Help Refugees
Human Rights Observers Refugee Info Bus
Refugee Rights Europe
Refugee Youth Service
Salam Nord/Pas-de-Calais
Secours Catholique Pas-de-Calais
Utopia 56 Calais
1 "Despite the confinement, the dismantling of migrant camps continues in Calais", France 3 régions, 20/03/20: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/pas-calais/calais/malgre-confinement-demantelements-camps-personnes-migrantes-se-poursuivent-calais-1803866.html?fbclid=IwAR2UrrjpSs1AyGF-A1QICl0fazkWVdDG3i5YIuyMOuIt- lSltjVfQPZCkjM
2 "Calais, a hundred migrants expelled from a camp" https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/pas- calais/calais/calais-centaine-migrants-expulses-campment-1827922.html
New large-scale eviction in the Dunes Industrial Zone: The endless cycle of "sheltering operations"
On 24 January 2020, orders on motions for evictions, written only in French, were once again posted in the Dunes industrial zone in Calais.
Five days after the posting of the orders, and for the fifth time since 22 September 2019, a large-scale police operation took place to evict part of the area from six o'clock in the morning where hundreds of people are surviving in unsanitary camps. Only one site covered by one of the orders was evicted, the "Shell station", which suggests that a new eviction of "Hedde Wood", covered by the second order, will take place soon.
No document was communicated to the inhabitants prior to the operation to inform them in a language they understood of the date of the operation, the locations of the reception centres, and their accessibility in terms of transport. This is a legal requirement under the Charter for the operation of reception and orientation centres (CAO).
Twenty-one law enforcement vehicles were mobilised and the operation was "calm". Only five coaches were chartered by the prefectural services to "shelter" one hundred and fifty people, leaving around forty people without any solutions, while knowing that all the basic necessities were confiscated by the police.
This operation, in violation of fundamental rights, costly in terms of public funds, will unsurprisingly be ineffective. It will only help to perpetuate this senseless cycle.
Presenting these operations as "sheltering operations", the government's action is in reality part of a securitarian logic, short-termist and degrading for the people concerned.
Stuck in a perimeter, escorted to buses whose destination they do not know, and sometimes threatened with detention when they do not want to be sent to the unknown, their consent is flouted.
It is clear that no one can be satisfied with the presence of unsanitary camps in which these people live, but it is important to remember that the public authorities are responsible for the existence of these unsanitary places, not their residents. The reason these settlements exist is because of European and French policies of non-reception. These policies are aimed solely at removing them from the public eye by forcing them to hole up in outlying areas, when they are simply seeking refuge on our territory.
Twenty-five years ago, the Constitutional Council enshrined as an objective of constitutional value the possibility for everyone to have decent housing. If this requirement were respected, no evictions would be necessary. Instead of tackling the problem at its roots, of tackling the precariousness of housing in Calais by resorting to dignified and sustainable solutions, the choice is made to turn our backs on them. It is this seriously discriminatory policy that we denounce.
We demand the regularisation of all undocumented migrants present on French territory, and the opening of safe and legal channels of movement for all. We denounce the Le Touquet agreements, the loopholes of the Dublin III regulation, which hinder the freedom of movement of displaced persons.
Signatory Organisations
Human Rights Observers
L'Auberge des Migrants
Utopia56