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France rejects English plans to 'recreate' Sangatte camp
Peter Allen in Paris18.03.09
FRANCE'S immigration minister today launched a scathing attack on Britain for suggesting a new detention centre for illegal migrants in Calais.
Eric Besson said the centre proposed by the minister of state for borders and immigration, Phil Woolas, would turn into a "new Sangatte", referring to the former Red Cross centre which acted as a magnet to thousands trying to make their way to the UK.
Mr Woolas said yesterday that plans for a new Anglo-French camp were well under way.
But on French television today Mr Besson said: "There is no question of re-creating Sangatte. It would be a dramatic error for everyone concerned, including the British.
"It would be a mistake as far as regulating the flow of migrants to the United Kingdom is concerned."
Sangatte was bulldozed as part of an agreement between Britain and France in 2002, with the authorities on both sides of the Channel pledging there would be no repeat.
The then-interior minister who signed the order to destroy Sangatte was Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president.
Mr Woolas faced further embarrassment when the Home Office was unable to provide details of how the proposed detention centre would work.
Mr Besson has been trying to present a more liberal approach to immigrants in Calais. Last week he pledged to build a number of "mini-Sangattes" - but rather than prisons they would be welcome centres offering food, showers, and legal advice.
A local government source in Calais further denounced Mr Woolas's proposals and said it would be "ridiculous and indeed illegal to start imprisoning would-be immigrants to the United Kingdom".
He added: "Quite the opposite - welcome centres are the order of the day at the moment."
Illegal immigrants found around the Calais area are now detained either in a centre at Coquelles - near the entrance to the Channel Tunnel - or in one of the two centres in Lesquin, near the Belgian border.
Reader views (11)
It's our job to protect our borders from illegal immigration, not France or any other countries. I'm not surprised they're annoyed. The British Government is INSANE and need locking up the whole lot of them.
- Real, London
I can't get my head round the real reasons these characters are trying to get over here in the first place- why not settle in France. The have the same weather in Calais.
- Alan W, Guildford Surrey
The English, just keep helping people all the time.(not their own) Why dont you just build a big Butlins camp, like the Irish have done for these immigrants. At least they will be clean, well fed and entertained before they arrive. Dont trust anything the government say, they will be sneeking them in left right and centre. Absolute useless liars.
- Yvonne, harrow Weald
"France rejects English plans !"
How can a place without borders or passports or indeed citizenship, viz. England, be called a country? This is a British plan, otherwise it soesn't represent our nation at all
- Keith Price, Luton, England
Doubt if French will ever allow another 'Holiday waiting camp' much easier to simply let them 'escape' to England as they do now and let us pay them benifit,give them homes,health care and education etc
No wonder we are now the most populated Country in Europe amd its getting worse every year under current Govs. open door policy
- Mike, London England
Lets just close the doors and let the French deal with these immigrants, maybe then the ywill be singing a different tune? We have 2 million plus unemployed, no immigration should be allowed during thee hard times.
- Brandon Thomas, London UK
The establishment of a camp will of course encourage more campers to await an opportunity to come across. How he can suggest this is laughable. The French are absolutly right. They must despair at the quality of British ministers
- Peter French, Orihuela Costa Spain
To Patricia and Bob,
If you had some notion of geography, you'd know that the first country they arrive in would not have been France. Anyone travelling from the East towards the UK overland is going to go through a few European countries before turning up in Calais. Look it up on a map. So the UK creates the problem by allowing itself to be known as the land paved with gold and refuses to accept the consequences. Typical. France bowed to the UK govt to close Sangatte and in return the UK govt has done nothing
- Ed, London
Of course the French don't want another Sangatte ... they're only too happy to see the back of the immigrants when they successfully enter the UK !
- Marianne, SW France
"welcome centres offering food, showers, and legal advice."
What sort of legal advice exactly? That the UK will only accept those wanting asylum if they can prove that the UK was their first port of call in the EU since leaving their own country? Unlikely, the French would rather palm them off on us so the sort of advice would be more like the best way to play the British legal system.
- Bob, Cheam
How can Phil Woolas say that plans for an Anglo-French camp were well under way when the French do not know anything about it. In any event, are asylum seekers not supposed to seek refuge in the first country that arrive in after leaving their country of origin. Why are the French not processing their asylumn applications. If they are not asylum seekers but economic migrants, why are the French not deporting them. They have used this area as a staging post for years and the British do nothing about it.
- Patricia, LONDON
