A Kent Conservative MEP has welcomed action by French police who appear to be clamping down in the hoards of migrants looking to sneak into the UK through the county’s ports.
[kentnews.co.uk] Richard Ashworth said he applauded the efforts of 300 French police who this morning arrested 150 migrants from makeshift camps located around Calais.
He said up to 1,000 migrants live in such squatter camps at any one time in the area.
The French ports are a magnet for migrants trying to enter the UK illegally through the Kent ports after crossing the Channel.
The police operation came two days before immigration minister Eric Besson was due to visit Calais for talks on the migrant situation.
A spokesman for the French government said: "It is an attempt to dismantle people-trafficking networks.
"It is an operation to destabilise the networks and try to find the smugglers."
She added that a security cordon had been thrown up around a migrant camp.
Many of the 150 people arrested said they were from Afghanistan and have been taken into custody in Calais, Boulogne and Lille.
A refugee centre at Sangatte, near Calais, was closed in 2002 and bulldozed, under pressure from Britain.
But since then, groups of migrants have been setting up makeshift camps around the French ports in the hope of sneaking on board one of the many thousands of Kent-bound lorries which pass through weekly.
There is no official help for these people from the French authorities were recently criticised for not doing anything about removing them from French soil.
Mr Ashworth said: “I thoroughly applaud the efforts of the French police during the series of raids.
“Such action has been long overdue and I am pleased to see the French government beginning to live up their obligations in tackling illegal immigration.
“However, there is increasing evidence that many migrants are coming into Europe via the sea crossing from North Africa.
“The EU needs to take more concerted action to police this stretch of water through its border security agency Frontex.”
According to existing EU rules, a nation can deport illegal immigrants back to the country they arrived from, but the French appear less than keen to carry this out, said immigration minister Phil Woolas during a recent visit to border controls.
