The Migrant Situation in Calais
Since 2015, the migrant situation in Calais has been presented as the result of a “migration crisis,” illustrating the strategies used by the French state to make migrants invisible and deflect attention from them: in 2002, the accommodation block and humanitarian emergency reception center at Sangatte were closed; in 2009, the “Pashtun jungle” was dismantled, and there were incentives to clear the town center by opening the Jules Ferry daytime reception center in the Dunes industrial park; in 2016, the “Calais jungle” was dismantled, followed by all the other camps. The security governance of migration is accompanied by humanitarian relief: support for migrants is initially conducted in emergency mode, with provision of basic necessities. If the Calais situation illustrates “the encampment of the world,” in the words of Michel Agier, it also reveals the way borders have been transformed depending on individual persons and their status: the Le Touquet Treaty (2003) and the building of an anti-migrant wall and fences in Calais are evidence of this. Finally, the presence of migrants in and around Calais results in local militant action being taken by anti-immigration protesters, those who are worried about the consequences of their presence, or by inhabitants showing solidarity with the migrants. With increased media exposure, the arrival of new, more professional national and international actors has led to tensions with local actors who have long been engaged with the problem on the ground.
Migrants in Calais - successive camps and fences, 1999-2018
Comment: The map of the town of Calais and its surroundings highlights two local aspects of the migrant situation. On the one hand, the sites allowing access to the United Kingdom – the Channel Tunnel entrance and the port of Calais – are inaccessible because fences and walls several meters high have been built. On the other hand, camps, reception centers, and squats where migrants assemble have all been dismantled by successive French governments since the early 2000s.
- migrants > Migration
- Movement of people leaving their country of origin permanently (emigration) to relocate to another country (immigration), which might be voluntary or forced (war, poverty, unemployment, human rights violations, climate factors, etc.), and which often involves temporary stays of varying duration in several transit countries. Migratory flows, which are an integral component of humanity’s history, give rise to a range of public policy measures linked to specific political, economic and cultural contexts and understandings of nationality. Host states seek to organize immigration, sometimes to attract it (need for labor, exploitation of specific territories, naturalizations, etc.), and most often to restrict it (border controls, quotas, residence permits, etc.). In most cases the states of origin seek to maintain relations with their nationals and diaspora communities living abroad.
- governance > Governance
- Inspired by management and entrepreneurship, the expression global governance refers to the formal and informal institutions, mechanisms and processes through which international relations between states, citizens, markets and international and non-governmental organizations are established and structured. The global governance system aims to articulate collective interests, to establish rights and duties, to arbitrate disputes and to determine the appropriate regulatory mechanisms for the issues and actors in question. Governance takes various forms: global multilateral governance, club-based governance (restricted to members, e.g. G7/8/20), polycentric governance (juxtaposition of regulatory and management mechanisms operating at various levels), and so on.
- borders > Border
- The line that marks the limit of state sovereignty, as distinct from the hazy boundary zones or limits of empires. In no way natural, these long-term historic constructs, which can be more or less endogenous and more or less subject to dispute and violence, are being profoundly altered by contemporary globalization processes. Regional integration processes are transforming and diminishing them – even erasing them, and pushing them back; transnational actors are crossing them or bypassing them; at the same time, they are being closed to migration, while new borders (social, cultural) are being constructed.