Freedom of movement at the French British border
L’Auberge des Migrants, Utopia 56, LDH Dunkerque, MRAP Dunkerque, Mobile Refugee Support, Human Rights Observers
Groups present at the French British border, including Utopia 56, L’Auberge des Migrants, LDH Dunkerque, MRAP Dunkerque, Mobile Refugee Support, Human Rights Observers, are joining this campaign.
Human rights violations and deaths at the French British border have been relentless for over 30 years.
Freedom of movement is not a bargaining chip, neither at the French-British border, nor anywhere else
For more than thirty years, the French-British border has been the site of organized violence against people on the move. Militarization, police harassment, and the so-called “zero fixation point” policy have turned the northern coast of France into a deliberately inhospitable territory, where every tent confiscated, every forced evacuation, and every life lost at sea is a stark reminder of the price of these political choices. Since January 2024, at least 119 people have lost their lives because of this border.
Rather than acknowledging the failure of this deadly strategy, France and the United Kingdom continue to intensify it. The cynically named “One in, One out” agreement, adopted this summer, is further proof of this.
Behind this brutal formula lies an unworthy reality: one life admitted in exchange for another expelled, human quotas, a bureaucratic barter that denies the most fundamental rights. This agreement traps people in a maze of absurd and discriminatory criteria, forming part of a wider policy of deterrence. This policy is entirely ineffective, as shown by the record number of successful crossings to the United Kingdom since the beginning of the year. Its sole objective is to satisfy public opinion, fuelled by the rise of the far right. It is a machine that produces precarity and tragedy.
We reject this policy of deterrence through violence and the instrumentalisation of people on the move. We denounce a new agreement that continues to externalize responsibilities, maintain opacity, fuel repression, and condemn people to death.
For all these reasons, we are joining the F.lotta movement, to bear witness to the reality unfolding at various European borders, such as here between France and the United Kingdom.
In Calais and along the coast, as elsewhere, the humanitarian emergency is the product of political decisions. These choices are killing people. It is time to put an end to them.
We are demanding:
- The immediate abandonment of the “One in, One out” agreement, as well as all previous agreements that have led to this repressive policy;
- Transparency on financial investments at the border, and the reallocation of British and French funds towards a dignified reception policy;
- An end to the Ministry of the Interior’s monopoly on migration policies in France, and at the European level, that these policies be guided by humanitarian imperatives rather than security and repression;
- Respect for the freedom to choose one’s country of asylum, currently restricted by the Dublin Regulation and the European Pact on Migration and Asylum;
- An end to the externalisation of the British border on French soil, and of European borders more broadly;
- The opening of safe passageways between France and the United Kingdom, as well as at the entry and exit points of the European Union.
Signatory associations : L’Auberge des Migrants, Utopia 56, LDH Dunkerque, MRAP Dunkerque, Mobile Refugee Support, Human Rights Observers
