The person who tore up migrants’ tents was “fired”, announces Gérald Darmanin

The employee of a private company who slashed migrant tents during evacuations from camps in the North was “licensed”, announced Gérald Darmanin during a hearing before the Law Commission of the National Assembly, Tuesday, December 7. Long denounced by associations, these methods have aroused great indignation, especially since they were documented in Grande-Synthe, at the end of 2020, by an independent photojournalist.

“Effectively absolutely not acceptable, a company – I will not quote it because the person who looked after it was made redundant – withdrew the tents by tearing them apart and then put them in the dumpster”, declared the Minister of the Interior, heard on the migratory situation in Pas-de-Calais two weeks after the shipwreck in the Channel which cost the lives of 27 migrants. The dismissed person is the one “who slashed” tents, and not the head of the company, the minister’s entourage told AFP.

“They weren’t policemen and gendarmes [qui les ont lacérées], there were no migrants inside and at the end of the day these tents would go to the recycling center no matter what “, defended Gérald Darmanin. “I understand the emotion”, he again declared in front of the deputies, specifying that he asked the prefects of Nord and Pas-de-Calais “to clearly include in the calls for tenders of waste companies that there are no lacerations” of tents. In Grande-Synthe, the Ramery group is responsible for cleaning up the premises after the evacuations, and in particular for removing the tents. Asked several times by AFP, the company did not wish to speak.