British Activists Spark Refugee Riots in Northern France
Activists from the British group No Borders provoked migrant riots in Calais, France that went on for several nights during the week of Nov. 11. Calais, the fifth poorest city in France, is currently home to approximately 6,000 migrants, many of whom live in the Jungle refugee camp on the border of the city, which is located in the northernmost tip of France. According to local police, refugees from the Jungle, predominantly young men, have been attempting to force their way onto cars headed for the ferry boarding dock or the Channel Tunnel (more commonly known as the Chunnel) en route to Britain. Refugees have frequently clashed with police attempting to stop them from illegally leaving the camp.
The anti-capitalist network No Borders originated in Germany, became a fixture in the U.K. by 2005, and has been a large presence in Calais since 2009. Members believe that “borders are created by, and serve, capitalist elites,” and should thus be ignored under the belief that the Earth belongs to everyone.
To help the refugees in Calais, No Borders set up a temporary fort where hundreds of refugees from Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and other North African and Middle Eastern countries can wait for their chance to escape the refugee camp. The activists have been assisting the refugees on a number of issues, advising them on how to reach Britain and seek asylum and purportedly urging refugees to subvert British border police if stopped.
One activist sees their work as instrumental to the survival of the refugees and remarked to the Euro News, “We distribute supplies which facilitate people to jump fences. If we do not give out these supplies these people will freeze to death.”
Furthermore, some activists believe they are being unjustly blamed as responsible for the actions of the refugees noting that they merely supplied the camp but did not force the refugees to riot. No Borders has stated that it feels branded as a scapegoat by the French and British governments waging war against the so-called defenseless refugees who, for their part, are simply trying to save their own lives.
The French authorities, on the other hand, see the No Borders activists as taking advantage of the refugees and their situation to further the group’s anarchist agenda by creating chaos and disregarding the borders within Europe. Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for the Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve, said that “the militants profit from the disarray and distress of the migrants, and use this distress to push them to riot, commit acts of violence towards police, and stop trucks on the road to hitch rides to England.”