Calais violence escalates - tourist cars targeted to cause lorry crashes

[MrsGuyOfGisbo]

[[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3772571/Carnage-Calais-Horrific-crash-jungle-migrant-gangs-target-tourists-cars-MoS-journalists-badly-hurt-terrifying-new-ambush-technique.html Terrifying]]
We used to travel a lot thru' the Tunnel at all times of day & night. Now only do it during the daytime and never stop in Calais.

If Sarkozy tears up Le Touquet, what happens with Eurostar? Do we all have to get off at Lille to have our passports checked? Currently the French check passports at St Pancras.

Lille is actually a weak link in the process. There was ( maybe still is) an easy route for migtants who could pay the fare.
Get on in Bxl with a ticket to Lille - no need for visa to UK because only 'travelling in Schegen region' ( ie Belgium to France).
Have in pocket a ticket from Lille to London. Already on train, so no check @ Lille. Tear up and flush away the Bxl to Lille ticket. No border checks at St P because of the Le Touquet agreement.
French basically didn't care anyway, as shipping the problem to London.

I live quite near a port, and twice recently have seen men emerging from the back of lorries on the motorway. I think they think the lorry has stopped when there is a traffic jam. I had to swerve when two dashed across from the central reservation.

Any sympathy I might have for migrants dissipates if they are known to be carrying knives and attacking lorries and their drivers. It has been reported that men were threatening a female lorry driver with rape.

unfortunately the people smugglers are horrendous, awful people who do use violence as said up thread. The vast vast majority of migrants and refugees are not like these people.

So it's just the smugglers who are doing this, not the migrants themselves?

Unfortunately it kind of goes with the job description that people smugglers are not going to be nice altruistic people. They are probably some of the worst kind of criminals from all across the world. Some of the migrants they send over end up in modern day slavery of all kinds, in a way they are worse off, because they don't even have their freedom then.

Question is how do we stop people who are listening to the lies they tell? How do we convince them that these people who seem oh so nice at the moment just want your money and may ultimately do you untold harm?

The ultimate problem solver would be to end the problems and the poverty in these people's home countries. If people have good lives at home, no way will they be doing this. How to do this is a trillion dollar question. You don't just have to end war, you have to change cultures, emancipate women, educate, stop corruption, provide healthcare, irrigate better, change farming methods and so the list goes on...

As said above, the French should deal with anyone without proper paperwork. The failure to do so and the failure of the EU to enforce EU rules on appropriate identity paperwork shows how rotten the EU has become.

If people have good lives at home, no way will they be doing this

^this

And another million or so spent on a bigger fence? This seems neanderthal in its approach. To be building a legal centre offering advice on asylum, to be processing those legitimately allowed to pass into the UK, would seem a more rational solution.

There is precious little information available to those in the camps - mostly because the people traffickers are determined to squeeze every last cent out of the desperate situation of the refugees and it suits them to keep their sources of income misinformed about their legal rights.

What I dont understand is, where are these migrants getting all this money to pay people smugglers?

Why aren't France fingerprinting and photographing everyone? If they know when they get into the UK they will be returned to France, then a lot of them might reconsider coming here.

.

The money comes from savings they created before life went to shit. Lots of them can't afford the smugglers though and that's a worry as to risks they might be taking.

Unfortunately many of them have genuinely lost papers, things get stolen along route or they have lost things in the chaos or sometimes the police destroy everything including their papers.

As to why France aren't fingerprinting everyone? other than they would have to do that by force, I don't know why. Probably because they don't actually want the asylum seekers themselves.

A friend of mine said yesterday he'll no longer be using Calais to take his daughter back to UK for university as he was very alarmed by the problems at Calais last week. He too will be switching to Dunkirk.

jenesuispas...the problem then becomes what about those who can't get asylum in the UK; do you think those who are turned down will just go away?

The same friend who will now use Dunkirk spends time helping out with the migrants in Brussels; they are clothed, fed, watered, and offered legal advice on claiming asylum in France, the NL or Belgium. They all want to go to Calais and try to get into the UK.

Unfortunately many of them have genuinely lost papers, things get stolen along route or they have lost things in the chaos

So they all lose their ID papers/passports but somehow keep their bank cards/money? Don't believe it, because their bank card could be used to prove their identity.

We drove past shortly after the MonS reporters were attacked last friday. They had tuned off the street lights along the motorway, I suspect to make it more difficult for people to sneak about at night. It felt eerie and a bit unsafe i told dh to lock the car doors to be on the safe side.

There were several police cars and French coppers standing at a roundabout we drove through just outside Calais and one shone a massive spotlight in my face. I was not amused as I felt ill and dizzy after a fantastically long journey.

On a different note, the self styled hero pictures of the journos were quite amusing. OF course i'm sorry they got injured but it looked like the guy with blood in his face had made sure to adjust his suit and look as James Bond like as possible failing a tad

you know, many of them have no money. They don't come as one homogenous group. Some have money and papers, some have nothing.

There is precious little information available to those in the camps

Are we sure about that? I don't doubt that traffickers prefer to keep their "customers" in the dark, but given the number of smartphones about it seems unlikely that there's no access at all to proper information

The irony is that people who voted leave thinking that it would solve all this kind of stuff are now finding out that it has made it worse. And it will get even worse I think.

I don't think voting to leave has made it worse. The EU needs to give Greece and Italy funding and personnel to deal with this, as the problem is at their external border , and I suppose that external EU border is also the French coastline.

The money comes from savings they created before life went to shit.

Or from loans taken out with loan sharks, or indeed the people smugglers themselves. Family back home will then be pressurised to repay, though they will be hoping they get remittances from the asylum seeker (so even more likely to work illegally if they enter legally as an asylum seeker or illegally).

My argument is simple, there is enough goodwill in the west to house every single actual refugee, and comfortably.

Historically refugees tend to repatriate once things settle down in their home countries. We have a moral responsibility to these people.

The wasps at the picnic are the media who all of a sudden, and for some unfathomable reason have forgotten how words work.

By conflating the words migrant and refugee an altogether unecessary level of obsfucation and confusion has been piled on.

The actual net result of this weapons grade bullshit is to make the circumstances for actual refugees far more dangerous and far more dangerous. Good job mainstream media!

I think there has to be some clarity about who precisely is a refugee, and who is an economic migrant. If genuinely refugees, then why aren't they registering as required in the country of entry? Neither France nor UK can be classed as a country of entry, so therefore those who refuse to register in France and insist on trying to get to the UK must be economic migrants.

I don't think that there is enough goodwill to house every refugee comfortably, and I am unsure that there is the money to do so, when we can't house those already on housing waiting lists and who have been for years, due to the lack of social housing.

you have some strange logic going on there scaryteacher. But there are about a billion threads going over and over this if you want to re-read the discussions.

The EU needs to give Greece and Italy funding and personnel to deal with this

Personnel perhaps - but funding? Call my a cynic, but given the financial situation of Greece in particular, I very much doubt such funds would be spent on the intended purpose

Completely with you on the refugee/migrant/point of entry issue, though

I don't need to reread the discussions thanks OhYoiuBadKitten, and nothing wrong with my logic either; you either claim asylum where you first enter the EU, Greece or Italy (not France), and then wait to be placed somewhere when you have been processed, or you are not imo a genuine refugee. The minute you start making demands about where you want to go and refuse to wait for your claim to be processed, or try to enter another country (the UK) illegally, then you are an economic migrant.

Puzzled, the EU had promised funds for the personnel needed (and to supply the personnel iirc), and to set up places where the migrants can be processed faster, but has this happened? I don't know what aid Greece and Italy has had to deal with this.

'either claim asylum where you first enter the EU, Greece or Italy (not France), and then wait to be placed somewhere when you have been processed, or you are not imo a genuine refugee. The minute you start making demands about where you want to go and refuse to wait for your claim to be processed, or try to enter another country (the UK) illegally, then you are an economic migrant..'

Yes Scary - completely agree with that logic.