France 'ready to dump migrants in Britain'

FRANCE wants Britain to sign a deal allowing thousands of migrants to flood into the UK.

IMMIGRANTS Calais border control is stretched IMMIGRANTS: Calais border control is stretched

Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart’s controversial plan to scrap passport controls was announced as migrants in the port staged an angry demo yesterday, waving placards written in flawless English.

The banners expose how Britain’s open-door asylum system and benefits culture are a magnet for Afghans, Kurds and Eritreans.

Exasperated by the sight of migrants sleeping rough as they try to board England-bound trains and lorries illegally, Mrs Bouchart outlined her scheme to rid Calais of the blight to French Immigration Minister Eric Besson.

“It’s necessary to speed up negotiations with the British because at the moment we’re ready to charter a boat to dump them over there,” she said.

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DESPERATION Immigrants are living in a makeshift camp in Calais northern France DESPERATION: Immigrants are living in a makeshift camp in Calais, northern France

She said all Britain had to do was sign up to the Schengen Agreement, which allows anybody to travel between EU states without passports or visas.

Mr Besson challenged Britain to share responsibility for France’s problem by asking why migrants from places such as Iran, Somalia and Sudan travel across the world to reach the UK.

“Britain should step up its controls and take on more of this burden,” he said. “Britain should also question why migrants and the traffickers in migrants believe that the British illegal job market is a golden opportunity.”

Mrs Bouchart welcomed a plan to bring in the army to destroy a notorious shanty town called The Jungle where a London journalism student was raped last year.

The two politicians, both tough-talking members of the ruling UMP party, were taking part in a meeting aimed at “cleaning up” a problem firmly blamed on Britain’s benefits culture.

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The French believe it encourages foreigners from all over the world to use their country as a base to get to the UK, where they receive generous welfare payments as asylum seekers or disappear into the black economy.

While Mr Besson favours the use of military force to tear down the squatter camps, he knows that removing passport controls from Calais would cause outrage on the other side of the Channel. Instead he would prefer to see a series of “mini” welcome centres set up along the French coast, offering food, showers and information.

He denied that they would be like the Sangatte centre, which acted as a magnet to thousands of migrants to the UK before being shut down in 2002.

If the UK did sign up to Schengen, then all the Calais migrants could flock to Dover unchallenged.

Earlier this week Mrs Bouchart said: “With some 800 migrants in the town the situation is becoming unmanageable.

“Calais is hostage to Britain, which refuses to ratify Schengen. I will ask the minister to restart negotiations with Britain.”

Mrs Bouchart said if Britain signed up to Schengen, then the migrants could make their way direct to the UK to claim asylum, rather than using France as a platform to get there illegally.

There are some 2,000 migrants sleeping rough in the Pas de Calais area, playing a nightly game of cat and mouse with frontier police as they try to board lorries and trains to Britain.

Referring to The Jungle, Mrs Bouchart said: “It’s not a camp, it’s a village. The municipal workers cannot clean it up, they’re not up to it. It needs an intervention by the army. There are more than 80 shelters, a mosque and shop.”

She said thousands of pounds of equipment had been stolen to build makeshift homes, some of it recovered during police raids on Tuesday. Around 200 people were arrested but almost all have since been released.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said the new mini centres would act as a magnet for asylum seekers trying to get into Britain. “Bulldozing The Jungle is welcome but setting up new structures is just a ploy to shift their problem on to us.”

Responding to the plan to make Calais a passport-free zone, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said: “UK policy is to not sign up to the Schengen Agreement. Weakening our controls will only play into the hands of the traffickers.

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