Calais: “Welcome to Fortress Europe” action

Sat 23rd July 2011

This after­noon over a dozen No Bor­ders activists blocked both vehi­cle entrances into the City Europe com­pound, stop­ping shop­pers and screen­ing those try­ing to enter with rules almost as arbi­trary as those used at real bor­ders… check­ing the colour of their cars, stop­ping peo­ple wear­ing hats or glass­es or with too many peo­ple in the car, see­ing as Fortress Europe was get­ting full.

Sat 23rd July 2011

This after­noon over a dozen No Bor­ders activists blocked both vehi­cle entrances into the City Europe com­pound, stop­ping shop­pers and screen­ing those try­ing to enter with rules almost as arbi­trary as those used at real bor­ders… check­ing the colour of their cars, stop­ping peo­ple wear­ing hats or glass­es or with too many peo­ple in the car, see­ing as Fortress Europe was get­ting full.

While peo­ple shout­ed ‘con­trôl fron­tière ici’ vehi­cles refused entry were direct­ed to Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre on the street oppo­site. After only sev­er­al min­utes some peo­ple try­ing to enter became very irate at the incon­ve­nience this mock bor­der con­trol was caus­ing to their after­noon shop­ping. How­ev­er many peo­ple were recep­tive to the demon­stra­tion and its pur­pose and lots of leaflets explain­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Calais were dis­trib­uted, with peo­ple tak­ing on board the point of the action.

Secu­ri­ty and police arrived soon after and removed the bar­ri­er at one gate. Activists in high-vis­i­bil­i­ty jack­ets con­tin­ued to con­trol and direct traf­fic for half an hour before being forced into the car park.

This fake ‘con­trol zone’ demon­stra­tion mim­ics the farce of ID and bor­der con­trols that seg­re­gate and per­se­cute peo­ple because of their race, nation­al­i­ty and income.

Refugees here are being sub­ject­ed to poli­cies aimed at dri­ving them under­ground and mak­ing them invis­i­ble. This nor­mal­iza­tion of state vio­lence has been put in place by British and French gov­ern­ments. These peo­ple have often been dis­placed by the poli­cies of these gov­ern­ments and are liv­ing not just the pain of the loss of the lives they left behind and the fear and uncer­tain­ty for their futures.

Unlike a demon­stra­tion pre­vent­ing peo­ple from enter­ing a shop­ping com­plex, the Euro­pean pol­i­cy of bor­der clo­sure is deny­ing peo­ple the chance to escape dan­ger and mis­ery. Dur­ing the last months an esti­mat­ed two thou­sand refugees flee­ing the war in Libya have drowned in the Mediter­ranean and rather than send­ing res­cue boats, Fron­tex the Euro­pean bor­der force, has sent boats to push refugees packed into boats back to the Libyan coast.

In Calais over the last few weeks there has been a step up in the offen­sive against migrants start­ing with the evic­tion of Africa House – the shel­ter and home of around 100 peo­ple with and with­out papers – with mass evic­tions and the destruc­tion of peo­ples homes and per­son­al belong­ings.

After force­ful­ly mak­ing peo­ple home­less, every place peo­ple move to, to eat, rest or sleep, has been sub­ject to mass raids and con­stant harass­ment, leav­ing peo­ple with lit­er­al­ly nowhere left to go.

No Bor­ders denounce the com­pli­ance of the police and the munic­i­pal ser­vices with such bar­bar­ic orders and denounce the com­plic­i­ty of those who wit­ness this and yet remain unques­tion­ing­ly silent. We are all human. We must chal­lenge the hypocrisy and seg­re­ga­tion that bor­der con­trols cre­ate.

No bor­ders, no nations, stop depor­ta­tions.