Clashes with police, shootings, and other violence amongst varying groups of prospective illegal migrants have broken out in recent days at camps in northern France as the leaders of both London and Paris have admitted the Channel crisis is “deteriorating”.
Over the weekend, several shootings occurred at the Loon-Plage migrant camp near Dunkirk. According to Le Figaro, two people were killed on Saturday and another was slain on Sunday.
An additional seven people, including a woman and a child, were injured during the chaotic scenes. On Monday, an Iranian man was reportedly stabbed at the same camp. So far, a man and a 17-year-old boy have been arrested in connection with the violence.
According to the pro-open borders Salam Association, there are currently around 1,500 to 2,000 migrants living in camps surrounding Dunkirk, meaning that it has likely surpassed Calais as the central hub for illegal migration across the English Channel.
Meanwhile, chaos broke out on a beach near Calais on Tuesday as a group of around 50 French police attempted to prevent hundreds of migrants from storming into the sea. The police deployed tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowds, but the efforts were mostly in vain as the migrants broke through and reached the people-smuggler-operated boats in the Channel as they shouted “England!”
Speaking to the Daily Mail, an officer from the operation said: “We can’t have policeman stood in a line one metre apart all along the coast of northern France.”
So far this year, over 16,000 illegals have successfully crossed the English Channel in small rubber dinghies, a new record for this time of year and a fifty per cent increase over last year.
The human trafficking trade, which operates on both sides of the waterway, has long benefited from the French government’s refusal to engage with migrants once they are on the water.
Instead, the French Navy often shadows people-smuggling boats until they reach British waters, whereupon the UK Border Force or Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) picks up the migrants and brings them to shore at Dover, where they typically apply for asylum, despite coming from a safe, first-world EU nation.
While French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said earlier this year that Paris would look to change the law to allow law enforcement to engage with migrants in the Channel up to 300 metres from the coast to return them to France, the government has yet to do so.
This comes despite the British government paying France hundreds of millions to subsidise its border controls. In total, French authorities have managed to prevent less than 40 per cent of migrant boats from taking off.
On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron held talks to discuss an upcoming bilateral meeting next month on the crisis.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “Migration should be a key focus given the deteriorating situation in the Channel, they confirmed, adding that they should continue to work closely with other partners to find innovative ways to drive forward progress.”
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