Three more migrants drowned off the French coast this week when their overcrowded and flimsy boat sank. In response to this latest tragedy, a French refugee organisation Utopia 56 posted a message on social media stating that ‘since July, there have been fatal incidents almost every week, causing at least 39 victims. It’s the result of the repressive policies chosen by our governments’.
Utopia 56 is one of France’s best known humanitarian organisations. My local newspaper in Burgundy recently worked with them in producing a report headlined ‘The migrants ready to die to reach England’. The introductory sentence described desperate migrants ‘fleeing bombs, repression and famine’. They came from Afghanistan, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen and Sudan.
A significant proportion of those who traverse the Mediterranean do so for economic reasons
According to official UK government figures, the four nations that have provided the most small boat passengers this year are Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam and Turkey. Albania and Kuwait also make the top ten.
Utopia 56’s report ignored the question of why the men and women fleeing bombs and famine didn’t claim asylum in Italy, Greece, Spain, France or any other European country that they traversed en route to Calais. Bruno Retailleau, France’s Minister of the Interior, said recently that some of the migrant and asylum organisations in France must start ‘acting with the state with more coherence’. He may have had Utopia 56 in mind.
Utopia 56 are an active presence in Calais. Their staff brief the migrants on the procedure should they get into difficulty once at sea: phone 112, the French equivalent of 999. They are duty bound to transfer the call to the coastguard. If for any reason 112 don’t answer, the migrants are told to contact Utopia 56 ‘and we’ll call the coastguard to make sure they know where you are’.
Utopia 56 was formed in 2015 and usually receives a warm press in France’s mainstream media, the majority of which – print and broadcast – have a sympathetic view of migrants. In April this year, the organisation welcomed to Calais a group of far-left politicians from Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise. One was the MEP Manon Aubry, who declared her support for ‘the humanity of all those fleeing wars, floods and disasters…On behalf of the Left in the European parliament, we say: we will never accept a Europe of barbed wire. We will always fight for a Europe of solidarity and humanity.’
This statement ignores the fact that many of those in Calais are economic migrants – as they readily admit – who are attracted to Britain because it’s the easiest country in Europe to find work and accommodation.
At the start of this month Utopia’s founder, Yann Manzi, who describes himself as a ‘humanist’ and a ‘citizen of the world’ was interviewed by Liberation. While he criticised the people smugglers, he reserved his fiercest words for the governments of France and Britain. ‘Everyone needs to assume their responsibilities,’ said Manzi. ‘To save lives, we need to open ferry routes and allow people who so wish to apply for asylum on English soil.’
He also advocated the official furnishing of migrants with life-jackets, and the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry. This would examine ‘what is happening on the northern coast, this systematic obstruction of people’s plans. We are also calling on the UK to stop subcontracting its border management to France.’ According to Manzi, what is unfolding in the Channel ‘is a crisis of welcome, not a migratory crisis.’
Utopia 56 aren’t funded by the state but other pro-migrant associations are, among them SOS Mediterranee. Since 2015 they have operated in the Mediterranean, picking up migrants off the coast of North Africa and transporting them to southern Italy. Its vessel, Ocean Viking, was impounded by the Italian government last year after repeatedly infringing a new law concerning the rescue of migrants at sea.
Among the left-wing French city councils that have donated six-figure sums to SOS Mediterranee are Lille, Paris and Marseille. In explaining why they were donating €130,000 (£108,400) to SOS Mediterranee this year, Marseille’s deputy mayor said it was to assist ‘children, women and men guilty of nothing except fleeing war, repression and ethnic violence’. As is the case with many of the migrants attempting to cross the Channel, a significant proportion of those who traverse the Mediterranean do so for economic reasons, leaving their homes in Egypt, Tunisia, Bangladesh and Morocco.
Bruno Retailleau is working on a new immigration bill, which will be tabled at the start of 2025, but the migrant associations are already using their allies in the media to sound the alarm. The NGO France terre d’asile (France, Land of Asylum), whose raison d’etre needs no explanation, receives government funding. Its president is Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who was a member of Francois Hollande’s Socialist government a decade ago – as was Emmanuel Macron.
A director for France terre d’asile spoke recently of their ‘concern’ that their funding will be cut by Retailleau. ‘We need to stop putting blinkers on and thinking that immigration can be stopped,’ she said. ‘What matters is how we organise it, and how we ensure that everyone can live together peacefully and on an equal footing.’ That is how the left in France regards the migrant crisis: empowering and inexorable. A utopia to be embraced.
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