Forums Forums National News Calais Blockade

After recent events of road blocks, in the night, cars and lorries being attacked by the inhabitants of the jungle in Calais, this is the result. About time too. Authorities on either side of the channel have done nothing, apart from hope a bad situation will go away.

Good luck to these lorry drivers, they have taken enough for long enough, and now the tide turns.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37271674

Lorry drivers and farmers are blockading the main motorway route into Calais in a protest calling for the closure of the town's migrant camp.

Local traders and trade unions also taking part and Cross-Channel travellers are facing disruption.

But the Port of Calais says a diversion has been put in place and ferries are operating as normal.

Two convoys of trucks left Dunkirk and Boulogne on the A16 motorway towards Calais on a "go slow".

Farmers in tractors were waiting on the side of the road to join the convoy.




Meanwhile, in Calais hundreds of protesters carrying banners gathered on the motorway, which is located close to the entrance to the Channel Tunnel and ferry terminals.

Channel Tunnel operator EuroTunnel advised motorists in France heading to Calais to follow one of its suggested alternative routes, but says its services are operating to schedule.

P&O Ferries and DFDS Seaways say travellers who are delayed will be put on their next available sailings at no extra cost.

The presence of the camp, say the organisers of the protest, is undermining Calais.

The lorry drivers say they have seen increasing threats from organised gangs and migrants, who have been attempting to board vehicles to reach the UK.

Farmers are said to be angry at the destruction of crops caused by the swelling of the migrant camp.

The "Jungle" has become the focal point of France's migrant crisis, with about 7,000 people, mainly from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa, living there.

BBC News correspondent Richard Galpin says one asylum seeker from Sudan has said he is saddened by the way local people view the camp, saying all they want is to live in peace after escaping from conflict.

Lorries and tractors

In recent weeks there have been reports of criminal gangs adopting new techniques to try to get migrants into the UK.

The Mail on Sunday said a log was thrown at a car carrying its journalists last week in a deliberate attempt to make them crash, to try to divert attention away from migrants boarding vehicles.

And last month the BBC broadcast footage of suspected people smugglers blocking the main route to Calais with a felled tree and threatening motorists with violence. more....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37271674

I am puzzled as how the French say we are responsible for the 9,000 or so refugees in Calais, they I believe are part of the schengen agreement, I was under the impression that part of that agreement states that refugees/asylum seekers should seek asylum in the country they land in as I understand it those in schengen have an open border policy which allowed them to travel through the various countries, so if you look at Europe as one big state and France being part of that state then France should accept them as asylum seekers, or am I missing something? put me straight granny.

I can't put you straight ,Casper because I also think the same. It doesn't make sense and nobody in any Government seems to have addressed that point. So maybe we are missing something, but like you I don't understand ,unless France decided to opt out of Schengen years ago without informing anyone else. That wouldn't surprise me. Rules for some but not for others.

Well it is amazing that they all seem to have their own little deals going, yet when we try they say no, I have very little time for the French as a nation, and I believe they will be vindictive and try to make things as difficult as they can for us.