Our Ports of the World summer series takes us to Calais today. This city in northern France is the closest to the British coast. Tourist and commercial ferries connect Calais to Dover, its English neighbour. Its proximity to the United Kingdom also makes it an important crossing point for illegal immigrants.
To enter the commercial port of Calais, you must be one of the insiders who have the precious badge. The whole area was fenced off with fences several meters high. ” This is to prevent illegal migrants from accessing the area and trying to get into the trucks leaving for Dover », explains our guide Charles Devos.
In the car of the boss of the Sea Rescuers, behind a CRS van, we therefore entered the area. On a huge parking lot, truck trailers are waiting, lined up. ” Drivers leave their trailers here, and then a tractor will load them onto the ferry », continues Charles Devos. Here, it is the main activity: the ferries which transport both goods and passengers.
The so-called Charlot spent a large part of his life on these quays. After a few years offshore on an industrial trawler, he was hired as a mooring operator in the port of Calais. Its mission was to help boats enter and moor in the port. At the same time, he joined the Sea Rescuers of Calais to eventually become its boss. ” Our missions have evolved a lot with the improvement of navigation tools. Today, boats are much less often in distress. On the other hand, we intervene much more to help illegal migrant boats. »
While giving us a tour of the rescue boat, Charlot keeps an ear on his radio. ” This sometimes allows us to anticipate the alerts that the operational center sends us. Once the center triggers the alert, often in the middle of the night, we have 15 minutes to moor. As soon as we are a crew of eight on board, I leave. There then begins a difficult mission in the dark and sometimes in the rain or the wind. You have to approach people who are often terrified, keep the boat stable and above all, Charlie’s great fear, not let anyone fall between the two boats. ” You know, when the sea is rough, the boats go back and forth against each other. It’s really not easy “.
A port without sailors
It is partly because this mission requires a certain dexterity that Charles Devos struggles to find a replacement at the head of the rescuers. He is already retired, but in two years will simply no longer have the right to participate in the alerts of this team of volunteers. To replace him, you need someone used to the sea… A sailor. But in Calais, it is an endangered species, just like fish. There are only two small fishing boats left in the port.
” The whole food chain has been decimated, sorry Charlotte, even the small fish that are used to feed the biggest predators. They are fished and transformed into flour to feed industrial salmon farms. The old sea bass is not surprised, he has seen over the years what he describes as “factory boats” tearing up the bottoms of the Channel, taking with them the fauna and flora without distinction, fishing fish with their eggs, thus breaking the reproductive cycle. Charlot therefore had to resign himself to training “earth-dwellers” so that they would be ready to take over the helm.
Once the shipwrecked people have boarded the rescuers’ boat, they are dropped off in the port of Calais. ” After that, it is the French authorities who take over the torch. For some time now, neither journalists nor humanitarian organizations have had access to ” returns to port “. Thomas Chambon works for the Utopia 56 association, he attended this type of situation a few days before our meeting. ” We were stuck behind the railings. So we passed cakes and bottles of water through the railings. Finally, only women with children could be taken away by an association. The others told them “go! go! go!” among them were women and a young man who appeared to be a minor. But the police did not go to ask him. »
At night, departures organized by smugglers often take place on the beaches around Calais. On evenings when the weather conditions seem to call for going to sea, Thomas Chambon organizes marauding trips along the coast to help those who have not made it. At his side, we scan the dunes in the light of the moon: “ We stopped because we saw CRS. Maybe they are looking for people or they are in intervention. We want to make sure everything goes well for the exiles. »
” They might kill me, but I’d rather go home »
That night, no shadow stands out from the darkness. On Calais beach, the sun and swimmers have finally regained their rights. Far away, in a downtown park, a man waits sitting on his camping mattress. He greets us with a peaceful smile. ” I’m going home to Afghanistan “, he breathes. He does not give us his name or his age, but tells us about this long road which he knows has become banal, as it has been taken by thousands of souls: “ I went through Iran, Turkey, then I took to the sea. In the end, I arrived in Paris, I wanted to apply for asylum, but the prefecture sent me back to the police and the police at the prefecture. They didn’t tell me where to sleep so I stayed on the streets for three months, that’s not a life. »
Difficult to imagine all the difficulties that the one who will be called Mojib fails to tell us. Before leaving, he had borrowed the equivalent of 25,000 euros from his family. Today, he no longer has a penny, not enough to pay a smuggler who could help him get to the United Kingdom. ” The only way would be to hide under a truck or jump on a train again. But now I have a heart problem, I can’t do this anymore. »
And then what’s the point of risking your life again and again to end up on the street begging for a little water, without ever being able to pay off your debts. So Mojib went to the police station. ” They’re going to send me back to Afghanistan in a few weeks. In the meantime, I’m waiting here, in this park. Yet in Afghanistan, the Taliban took power a year ago. With reserve and discretion, he simply concludes: “ Everyone dies one day. Maybe they’ll kill me, but I’d rather go home anyway “.