Lily Boillet, a worker at Terre d’Errance near Calais, will be contributing a 2-part series in the bulletin about her impressions of the lives of the undocumented migrants who live around Calais, France, hoping to seek asylum in the UK.

Six years after closing the Red Cross Center in Sangatte in 2002, the north coast of France has become the target of totally dysfunctional immigration policies. Nothing has changed since the end of Red Cross support for asylum-seekers- migrants wanting to seek asylum somewhere are still there, but in worse and worse conditions.

To introduce myself, my name is Lily Boillet. I work for Terre d’Errance, (’World of Wandering) - a voluntary organisation working with asylum seekers in the region around Calais, France, many of who live in camps such as ’The Jungle’ . We are an independent group, with an income exclusively from charitable donations. The people we work with are in our region because they want to cross the Channel to come to the UK to them seek asylum. Most of our friends are from Eritrea and Ethiopia, with others from Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions. We help them to get by on a daily basis in France, and to generally survive all the obstacles they face. Do have a look at our website (sorry there’s no translation in English yet).

From my experience, this is not the time to talk about the right to free movement or about seeking asylum in people’s country of choice. The north of France is the greatest example of the European policy on asylum, immigration and border control. For two years, I’ve lived with people who can’t be deported to their country because of the persecution they would experience there. When they do seek asylum, almost all of them get refugee status, but because of border controls they can’t seek asylum in the countries where their family may already be. They can’t move around in Europe like any other human being. They have to risk their life in crossing borders illegally. And if they have already been fingerprinted in one European country they can no longer join their family in another country. They fall into underground in a place where they cannot settle, becoming vulnerable and leading unstable lives.

Within the last two years I’ve seen people crossing from France to England several times, being removed from the UK each time before finding their way back to the north of France. They become wandering people. And step by step they are destroyed ; they can imagine no future, no school, no wedding, no children, no life.

Around those people, a whole world is involved. In our area, Calais, or every other little ’jungle’ in France, many citizens are living side-by-side, in many different ways. Some people just look at them walking on our streets, sleeping in our ditches, living in our forests or disused buildings. Some others try to bridge the gap and hold out their hand to other human beings. To hold out one’s hand to migrants or asylum seekers in that area is always a struggle : some French people have been working on such basic things with some success : to obtain toilets which the asylum seekers can access (after six years, three toilets have been established for 700 people in Calais) ; to save their lives from the cold by providing shelter ; to save their bodies from disease by giving them showers ; to save their minds from madness by giving a smile, a hand, just a little chat to say "I’m beside you" .

Every tiny thing for those migrants around Calais is a struggle. What kind of link can we create, we, European citizens, to establish the dignity and protection of the people on our doorsteps ?

A recent French film, ’Welcome’, portrays the journey of an asylum seeker from France to the UK.

Lily will continue her account in the April MRN bulletin, with her impressions of asylum seekers lives in the UK based on ongoing research for Terre d’Errance.

MRN : http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/