“very partial” satisfaction of mayors after Bruno Retailleau’s announcements in Pas-de-Calais

More border police, involving the United Kingdom financially, opening a compensation fund… during his visit to Pas-de-Calais, the Minister of the Interior dictated a series of measures to limit the migratory phenomenon on the Franco-British border. Guy Allemand, mayor of Sangatte, points out their lack of humanism.

On November 29, 2024, the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau visited Pas-de-Calais following numerous requests from the collective of coastal mayors. For several weeks, they had been requesting the visit of the minister, then suffering from a feeling of abandonment in the face of the migration crisis on the Franco-British border.

From the coast, Bruno Retailleau pledged to deploy more law enforcement on the ground, create a compensation fund to reimburse individuals who have suffered damage and relaunch negotiations with the United Kingdom so that the latter participates financially in containing the crisis.

72 hours later, Guy Allemand, mayor of Sangatte, had time to digest the words of the Minister of the Interior. While he congratulates the rapid deployment of resources in Pas-de-Calais, he remains doubtful that they will solve the problem in its entirety. He agreed to answer questions from France 3 Hauts-de-France.

► Read also: Migrants: for associations, Bruno Retailleau's proposals attack people who are “already in danger”

How do you react to Bruno Retailleau’s announcements?

German Guy : “We have the feeling of satisfaction which remains very partial. The announcements which were made by the minister were announcements to further strengthen the security side, both to save lives and to prevent migrants from crossing.

What the mayors deplore is a situation that has been unbearable for several years, even several decades. Recently, there have been outbreaks of violence due to obstacles preventing people from crossing, causing clashes with the police. Our population has difficulty experiencing these events, but also experiencing the passages of migrants who leave traces, this entails a lot of costs for the municipalities.

We had positive responses.

German Guy

Mayor of Sangatte (Pas-de-Calais)

We had positive responses. We had called for a prefect responsible for immigration, and it was done. We also asked for more law enforcement and more contact, this has been achieved. There is indeed the establishment of a compensation fund for those who have been victims of damage at the private level, and there would be a compensation fund for the municipalities.

Now the main question is: what will come out of the discussions with the English?”

On a humanitarian level, is there a lack of announcements?

German Guy : “There is a real lack of announcements. The key to the answer lies in the meeting with England.

With regard to minors, who have the benefit of family reunification and for whom we could create a legality corridor, there has been no response. (…) For us, we need to have the answers as quickly as possible to find serenity in our territory.

It impacts our populations to see migrants completely wandering on our territory. They constitute wild camps which are dismantled every 48 hours and which leave stigma that we must manage at the community level. This impacts the firefighters, 12% of their activity relates to immigration matters and it is the SDIS which pays, itself paid by the communities.

The minister's response is that we are going to make the English pay, okay, but on a humanitarian level, we could have allocated millions of euros to have decent centers. But his response is violent: we do not want to create a vacuum cleaner effect, we do not want to create a fixation point, it would be an avalanche of the migratory phenomenon on France.

The real solution is to stop English hypocrisy.”

Is this meeting with the English essential?

German Guy : “It is essential. So, we must salute the creation of this collective [des maires du littoral, NDLR] by Natacha Bouchart, even if it was criticized by the mayors of Boulogne and Dunkirk, it had the merit of moving the lines and opening the dialogue.

► Read also: In Hauts-de-France, 14 coastal mayors unite to denounce the “feeling of abandonment” and demand action in the face of the migratory drama

Retailleau was not stingy with his words and took his time to explain all his proposals to us. Behind this is the establishment of a monitoring committee which will allow the verification and clarification of everything that will emerge from this meeting with her English counterpart, Ms. Cooper, [ministre de l’Intérieur britannique].”

Comments collected by Damien Deparnay and Flavien Bellouti