This attempted intrusion occurred during the night from Thursday to Friday, in the enclosure of the port of Calais.
According to the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, around a hundred migrants tried to enter the premises, hampering traffic.
A truck driver was slightly injured in the head and transported by firefighters to the Calais hospital while, on the spot, calm did not return until around 4 a.m.
“That night, around 3 am, a hundred migrants entered the eastern ring road by cutting the fence located at the site of the new port”, explained the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais, confirming information from La Voix du Nord . These migrants "tried to obstruct traffic by depositing equipment on the road" and the police "used tear gas to disperse them", continued the prefecture, which specifies that traffic was "slightly impacted" on time of the intervention of the police and "several trucks were damaged by the jets of projectiles".
"I have been working in road transport for years and this is the first time that this has happened to me", testified to La Voix du Nord, Ryszard, a Polish driver whose truck was damaged, like a dozen others.
“They threw stones at the vehicles.
[…] Honestly, I was afraid for my life, ”he added of these migrants who managed to enter the port.
Reinforcements requested
“There are enough… I don't want to relive the past history. We fought with Natacha Bouchart
(LR mayor of Calais)
for the dismantling of the jungle (
in 2016
) and for a settlement of the migratory situation on the coast. The State has made commitments, they are not kept, ”said the president of the Hauts-de-France regional council, Xavier Bertrand, after a meeting with the city councilor.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, the two elected officials ask for the immediate deployment of additional human and material resources. "I asked for reinforcements for the BMR (mobile research brigade, in charge of migratory questions), there are only 36 and I warned the State that the smuggling networks had multiplied their activities by two and even three" , pointed out the mayor of Calais, also considering it necessary to "modify the judicialization of the migratory question".
Hundreds of migrants, Iraqis, Iranians, Sudanese or even Eritreans, eager to reach England, are in Calaisis. Many of them try to cross by sea in small boats, others by trucks via the Channel Tunnel. Since the beginning of May, more than 180 of them have been rescued in French waters and brought ashore, according to figures communicated by the maritime prefecture.
