Posted on 09/03/2014 4:15:36 AM PDT by csvset
Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart on Tuesday threatened to shut down the port unless Britain helps solve the problem of the hundreds of immigrants turning up there in a bid to sneak across the Channel.
"I could take the decision to block the port... I could bring pressure to bear," Bouchart told reporters in Paris after meeting Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
"It would be illegal," she recognised, "but today I want to make a strong gesture towards the British."
The mayor took issue with British immigration policy which, she complained, "is "considered as an Eldorado" by immigrants.
She also reproached London for demanding security is boosted at the Calais port without participating enough in financing the project, which, she said, cost 10 million euros ($13 million) a year.
Bouchart said she had not discussed the possibility of blocking the port with the interior minister, aware that he could not back such a measure.
"But I told him that I hoped he would have some strong negotiations with the British."
Cazeneuve, who was in London last Friday, had called on the British to help financially with security at the port, a ministerial source said.
Bouchart and Cazeneuve also agreed on opening a day centre for immigrants in Calais, many of them from Africa, and a night shelter for women and children.
There are around 1,300 immigrants in the northern French port.
Most are from Eritrea or Somalia and are hoping to reach England rather than seek asylum in France.
People fleeing war-torn Syria are adding to the rising numbers.
A Red Cross centre was opened for them in 1999 but rapidly became overcrowded, holding 2,000 people before it was closed in 2002, rather than the 800 it was built for.
Hundreds of would-be immigrants die in dangerous Mediterranean crossings every year, while others are detained by Italian police once they reach the southern EU member's territorial waters or the islands of Sicily or Lampedusa.
Clashes regularly break out between the immigrants in Calais.
Nice that France wants the UK to fix their immigration laws, but how do these folks get in to France in the first place?
“... how do these folks get in to France in the first place?”
The same way all our new ‘citizens’ got HERE
Yeah, like England doesn’t have its own immigration problems it has to worry about the French...
“migrants?”
They’re not migrants. They’re illegal invaders leaving a hellhole and trying to turn a civilized country into a hellhole.
Let the illegals in or else.
What does “considered as an Eldorado” mean?
Start a rumor that Ebola is lose in the camps. they will empty quickly.
such convoluted thinking.....the mayor of a tiny French city, demanding that the Brits help her community...
Irrestabable temptation. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, etc.
True.France is demanding that Britain fix it’s “front door,” while it leaves it’s “back door” wide open.
France needs to prevent them from getting into their country in the first place. I think a lot of the political elite in France is beginning to fear the election of Marine Le Pen.
In all honesty, the elites don’t mind the illegals. What they fear more is losing their political power. Le Pen frightens the Shiite out of them.
Close the port then, you sniveling whiner. It will hurt you a lot more than it will hurt the Brits. Then focus on fixing your own government ... you know, the one that let these vermin in to begin with.
But then how would the ruling class buy its votes, you ask.
How about stuffing the Somalis into a shipping container, and dropping it on a Somali beach?
We will see this on American shores next. We already saw some smaller examples last week. If Obama orders the USCG and Navy not to turn them back at sea, then like in Italy, it will snowball.
“Bouchart and Cazeneuve also agreed on opening a day centre for immigrants in Calais, many of them from Africa, and a night shelter for women and children.”
That’s sure to drive the illegals away.
Clinical insanity to allow that bunch in.
ElDorado means "the golden", as in the land of gold. It means these Somalis intend to fleece the UK welfare system.
Calais migrants foiled as they try to storm ferry
{snip}
Scores of illegal migrants in the French port of Calais have tried to force their way onto a ferry bound for England, officials and witnesses say.
Passenger John Bailey told the BBC that the migrants had tried to run up the ship's main ramp but the crew raised it and turned a fire hose on them.
The migrants were detained by French police, the UK Border Force said.
On Tuesday the mayor of Calais said she would blockade the port unless Britain helped to control the migrants.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.