We have been teaching a university short course on “life stories” in the Calais “Jungle”. We have not found the “economic migrants” of whom French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve speaks. Students have had traumatic experiences far exceeding those defining a “refugee”. Fluent and educated in English,they want to use those skills. Many have relatives in the UK; some are minors. A number worked for UK or US forces and were consequently attacked.
David Cameron said he “applauds” the French governments approach to Calais (theguardian.com, 3 March). Yet France’s forceful evictions are further violations of residents’ lives. As the poet Warsan Shire set aside it: “No one leaves domestic unless domestic is the mouth of a shark.” Now bulldozers are chewing up carefully constructed havens of wooden shelters and tents, or bringing the sharks domestic again.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com