A former supporter of France’s anti-immigration National Front has gone on trial accused of helping her Iranian refugee lover cross the English Channel to Britain.



Béatrice Huret faces up 10 years in jail if convicted of helping Mokhtar – whom she met while volunteering at the since-demolished migrant camp in Calais – slip out of France under cover of night on a rickety boat.

The 44-year-old is one of several people around France who have been charged with illegally assisting migrants in recent months. While none have been imprisoned, a farmer was recently hit with a €3,000 fine.

Arriving at the courthouse in the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer on Tuesday, she said she hoped the trial would help others “understand what I did and why I did it” and said she took full responsibility for her actions.

“I am prepared to give up my life for him. The only thing that would bother me is that I would no longer be able to see Mokhtar if I’m in jail,” Huret said.

Her lawyer said she would ask the court to dismiss the case, insisting her client acted for humanitarian reasons.

She is being tried alongside three others accused of helping migrants make their way across the Channel – two of them French and one Iranian.

Huret’s life was transformed in February 2015 when she gave a lift to a young Sudanese migrant travelling to the makeshift camp where thousands of people were living in tents and shacks.



“It was a shock to see all these people wading around in the mud,” said Huret, whose husband – a border police officer – died of cancer in 2010.

She began volunteering at the camp and a year later met the 37-year-old Mokhtar, who was among a group of Iranians who sewed their mouths shut in protest over the demolition of part of the camp in March 2016.

“It was love at first sight,” Huret said in an interview earlier this month.

Béatrice Huret went on to write a book, Calais Mon Amour, about her romance with Mokhtar, an Iranian refugee. Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images

After a failed bid by Mokhtar to hide in the back of a lorry, she helped him acquire a small boat and towed it to a beach from where he and two other Iranians crossed to England on 11 June 11 2016.

Mokhtar, who is living in Sheffield, has since been granted asylum.

Huret went on to write a book about their romance, Calais Mon Amour, for which several film-makers are vying to acquire the rights.

She is one of several people to appear in court in recent months charged with illegally assisting migrants from Africa and the Middle East who travel through Europe after crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy boats or stowing away in trucks travelling overland via Turkey.

Since demolishing the Calais camp in October French authorities have taken a stern line on illegal migration, accusing activists who provide assistance to homeless foreigners of creating a “pull” effect.

A 37-year-old olive farmer in southern France was recently fined €3,000 (£2,650) for helping African migrants cross the border from Italy and giving them accommodation.