Only hours after twelve migrants drowned attempting to reach England from France another group set out. This time they were intercepted by police before their small boat could be launched close to Dunkirk. Two alleged smugglers were arrested and three policemen were injured as they came under attack from a mob of around 100 angry migrants.
‘England is a country where you can work very easily without having a residence permit’
Tuesday’s tragedy has evidently had no effect on the thousands of migrants strung out along the northern French coast; they remain as determined as ever to reach England.
Why this resolve to cross the Channel? That is a question that has exercised the French media since the turn of the century. Liberation visited the Sangatte camp outside Calais in 2001, two years after it had opened, and spoke to a few of the 23,000 migrants from 110 nationalities who had passed through its doors in that time.
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