A week after the death of 27 people while trying to cross the Channel, associations including Cimade point in a forum on franceinfo the responsibility of public authorities and urge them to change their policy.
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“It’s easy to accuse smugglers because there are regulations that are inapplicable”, declared Wednesday, December 1 on franceinfo Henry Masson, president of the inter-movement committee with the evacuees (Cimade), who denounces in a forum, with other associations, “the culpable blindness of the French and British authorities” after the fatal sinking in the English Channel on November 24. Twenty-seven people lost their lives. “We must find legal and secure passageways to avoid these shipwrecks”, pleads Henry Masson.
franceinfo: What do you expect from the government?
Henry Masson: More humanity, respect the dignity of foreign people who are on our coasts and who want to go to England because they are English-speaking, because they have family there. Whatever means we put in place to prevent them from going to England they will still want to go there and therefore unfortunately the 27 dead will only add to the others and there will be other shipwrecks in the areas of the Channel. The French and British governments must think about another policy and there is no point in wanting to evacuate camps by smashing tents and personal items. The people who want to leave will leave. Legal and secure passageways must be found to avoid these shipwrecks.
You denounce the “blindness” of the authorities rather than the smugglers. Why ?
Who organizes these trips? They are the smugglers, so let’s fight against the smugglers and everything will be settled. But why are there smugglers? The smugglers are there because there are no legal and secure routes. It’s a little light to say that we are going to fight the smugglers and that it is their fault. It is the fault of regulations which oppose a will stronger than anything, such as that to join his family. It is therefore easy to accuse smugglers because there are regulations that are inapplicable.
The money used to watch the Channel is not going to be used for anything?
We can imagine all the modes of protection, it is never enough. This means that you put on an extra layer, then another and spend a lot of millions. Meanwhile, there are men, women and children who seek refuge somewhere and find themselves in the middle of the woods, on a coast, in tents that are being destroyed. All that security money would be much better spent welcoming these people with dignity and calmly considering their requests and whether they want to stay in France or move to Britain. As long as we do not resolve this issue, we will have camps here and there.