Faced with the “arrêtés” taken by the town hall of Calais to prohibit the distribution of meals to the exiles on the outskirts of Calais, food distributions had started this Monday outside the hangar Paul Dévot, near the center of Calais (see here and here). In addition, an urgent appeal (urgent procedure) was filed Monday night and will be heard today Thursday at the Administrative Court of Lille.

The distributions of Monday and Tuesday evening went well, under the more inquisitive eye the first day, more distant the second, of a CRS van and a car of the municipal police.

Yesterday night, the Paul Dévot hangar was surrounded by CRS vans and police cars, people from the associations approaching were checked, distribution could not take place there, there were police officers saying they had a requisition from the prosecutor (so in principle for identity checks, and it would be interesting to see it and to see how the prosecutor motivates identity checks that are aimed at preventing people from eating).

The distribution took place a little further, in front of the former Calais Labor Office, which was also the place of shelter of the exiles under the Great Cold Plan between 2007 and 2014, and which the town hall of Calais today leaves abandoned like many other buildings it owns.

At the end of the distribution, CRS vans deploy and an identity check is announced with a megaphone (on what legal basis?). Two exiles do not flee, a minor with a broken foot, and an adult who has his arm in a sling and can not run. Both are taken by the BAC (Anti-Crime Brigade – so it is criminal to eat). And volunteers are controlled before being left free to go.

So that’s how it goes in Calais, but also elsewhere, from Calais to La Roya via Paris, all along the corridor of state inhospitality which runs from the Italian border to the British border – and after all over the territory?

In any case, we will always be there.