International call for solidarity against eviction of the Calais Jungle
The French government, in collusion with the UK, has announced plans to evict the 6,000-person Calais camp known as ‘the Jungle’ by the summer. Over half the camp is set to be demolished any time from the morning of Wednesday 24th February.
The eviction will not happen in one fell swoop but in in more ‘manageable’ phases. This tactic is designed to gain the cooperation of the camp’s inhabitants and supporters by pointing to other areas of the camp for people to seek refuge. However, as the Jungle is slowly demolished piece by piece, soon there will be no more areas for the residents of the Jungle to turn to.
* Two large evictions have taken place already: in November, one section of the camp was evicted to make way for a ‘container camp’ – a prison-like area of shipping containers designed to accommodate a tiny fraction of the camp’s inhabitants – and in January, another eviction took place to clear a 100m wide ‘buffer zone’.
In both cases, bulldozers were used to raze people’s shelters, if they weren’t moved by the people themselves. In January, shops and places of worship were also flattened, contrary to promises by the state that these community spaces would be spared destruction.
* The next phase that has been announced will be the single biggest eviction to date. The state claims that the area under threat of eviction houses 1000 people. In fact the South Zone constitutes around 3,500 people, all the residents of this area have been given until 8pm on Tuesday to leave. If they fail to comply, the bulldozers and police will be sent in.
The South Zone also contains the majority of the autonomous and grassroots infrastructure built in the last 6 months. A census conducted shows the different numbers of people resident in this area of the camp. An appeal against the decision to evict the South Zone of the Jungle will be heard in court on Tuesday.
We have seen seven years of camp destructions in a relentless war of attrition against migrants. We must not be fooled by or perpetuate the state’s false promises. In January, some of the camp’s inhabitants issued a statement announcing their plans to peacefully resist the eviction and we must show them the maximum solidarity in their struggle.
The ‘jungle’ is a ghetto created by the French state. The residents were forced there by previous state evictions and now the state wants to destroy it. The inhabitants of the ‘jungle’ are as mixed as any group of people. They are Afghan, Kurdish, Sudanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian and more. They are babies, children, teenagers, adults, parents, and grandparents. They were given permission to live here and now they are being made homeless, again.
****CMS calls for international actions of solidarity against the eviction of the jungle, where at least the melting pot of communities who live there are able to cook, share, dance, build, struggle and survive together in the face of the repression and misery that is the border.
We call on people to organise urgent action, now and in the coming weeks, against targets of the French and British state and the commercial interests which facilitate the repressive operations in Calais.