Calais

[Thunder Bolt]

I have,
Its chaos for the Lorry drivers,not so much for cars.
I did come rather too close for comfort though to splattering a migrant all over the motorway as he jumped out between parked lorries and dashed across the motorway with gendarmes in pursuit.

I don't understand why lorry drivers are parking up for over 20 hours when they can cross from Newhaven in 4 hours,

 

[Mackenzie]

D

I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't. When we were driving back to Calais we had several texts from friends & family warning us of the chaos. This post is an exact duplicate of one that's already in The Other Stuff which was moved.
It was very calm & very quiet when we arrived in the early morning (5am). The DFDS workers were on strike & had been burning tyres, but when we got home the BBC were reporting it as if the fires were caused by & part of the migrant problem.

When were you in Calais?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

When were you in Calais?

At the end of June when the ferry workers were on strike. This current crisis has been going on for 42 days.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I don't understand why lorry drivers are parking up for over 20 hours when they can cross from Newhaven in 4 hours,

Cost would be one reason. The other that Dieppe is a tad out of the way if your final destination is say Germany or any other country in that area.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Cost would be one reason. The other that Dieppe is a tad out of the way if your final destination is say Germany or any other country in that area.

But for the Spanish & Portuguese destinations it would be easier. It must be costly to park up for over 20 hours doing nothing.

 

[Big G]

Its almost as if you are implying the French have lost control/not interested

Funny that, was thinking exactly the same but I'm swaying towards not interested as it is better for them if they get through as its one less problem to deal with in France.
But I don't really see the problem, the asylum rules are to my understanding that they must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in!
So if they come to here from France and they haven't claimed the asylum from where they are fleeing in that first safe country (ie FRANCE or all the other European countries they travelled through to get there) then they quite clearly are not genuine asylum seekers.....and nothing but economic refugees trying to sponge of the British taxpayer and should instantly be deported!!!! No ifs no buts, and no costing the taxpayer a penny while they take years appealing that it might hurt their feelings if they don't a house and money for nothing.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

One of many thousands, the issue is we offer better benefits than a lot of other European countries, whether that is acceptable or not is a totally different debate.

Very well established that a far lower percentage of immigrants claim benefits, than British nationals.

 

[Beach Hut]

Yet we come 6th in the number of migrants we allow in, in Europe. Sweden & Germany take in many more than us.

I realise that the issue is migration so whilst these terrible, inhumane acts carry on in other countries those people will try and move away. Would you stay in the UK if it was a terrible regime and you were persecuted ?

Personally I would not so yet again this is a global issue

 

[hans kraay fan club]

I realise that the issue is migration is the issue whilst these terrible, inhumane acts carry n in other countries those people will try and move away. Would you stay in the UK if it was a terrible regime and you were persecuted ?

Personally I would not so yet again this is a global issue

Absolutely this.

 

[pastafarian]

I don't understand why lorry drivers are parking up for over 20 hours when they can cross from Newhaven in 4 hours,

I was in a hotel in Belgium last week and there were a dozen or so hauliers staying who were lucky enough their firms pay for accommodation,this same question was asked of them,it would seem that the profit margins for many hauliers are very tight and its expensive to book a ferry place last minute especially if you loose/ dont get a refund from euro tunnel. The blokes i mostly spoke to were being rerouted to Zeebrugge instead,their cargo was high end super expensive stuff with money no option.......i dont think most hauliers are that lucky

 

[atfc village]

Electric fences that'll stop em.

 

[pastafarian]

Funny that, was thinking exactly the same but I'm swaying towards not interested as it is better for them if they get through as its one less problem to deal with in France.
But I don't really see the problem, the asylum rules are to my understanding that they must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in!
So if they come to here from France and they haven't claimed the asylum from where they are fleeing in that first safe country (ie FRANCE or all the other European countries they travelled through to get there) then they quite clearly are not genuine asylum seekers.....and nothing but economic refugees trying to sponge of the British taxpayer and should instantly be deported!!!! No ifs no buts, and no costing the taxpayer a penny while they take years appealing that it might hurt their feelings if they don't a house and money for nothing.

There was a pro EU french chap on the radio today,i thought he was going to come out with the usual clap trap but he said very much this,he said the free movement of people system has broken down and "we" in europe need to admit it and address it.He also added countries were just ignoring the rules of people claiming asylum and just moving them on to be a problem for someone else.......i guess that is now the easy option for many countries.

He was just about to explain how bringing back border controls to stem the migration problem would not interfere with free movement within europe but i turned the radio off so didnt hear

 

[Mackenzie]

At the end of June when the ferry workers were on strike. This current crisis has been going on for 42 days.

It seems to have escalated recently. I was there at the beginning of June.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Whos idea was it to build that tunnel...its there fault

 

[perseus]

1558

On 29 January I wrote your Highness what news there were, including how Calais had been lost. You will know that it was by an act of treachery on the part of the man who was in command there. He was a great heretic.

 

[crookie]

The camps will have to be bulldozed sooner or later. While politicians vacillate because they haven't the balls to face up to it, our Kent communities are being devastated, try moving around Ashford or Maidstone and the surrounding areas. People think this is just the M20, it's fallout affects the whole of the county. we are effectively being blockaded by French strikers and illegal asylum seekers. A few new fences and dogs will do nothing. These people think they will get cash handouts and a free house as soon as they get across the channel. If you've come from the hell that is Syria or Eritrea, of course you'd go for it. We need to establish some control, and if it takes the army in Calais to do so, then that is what we should do. Surely trespass is an offence in France ? If they aren't prepared to enforce that, we need to do it ourselves. I would have a little more sympathy if they were from Commonwealth countries where we have a historical bond, but these people are mostly from Syria, Ethioipia, Eritrea, Libya and Somalia, ex french and Italian colonies, and so they should take them all. We have enough people already here with no empathy with our way of life and history

 

[BensGrandad]

Have the problems increased since the UK Border contrrol was in Calais and the French one in Dover? In the old days when the Border control was in UK any people not admitted wree just sent back to France. Would that work if we returned to that system? Perhaps it would make France take more responsibility.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Changed my plans and swapped my Calais bookings to winter for my next ski holiday and went Newhaven-Dieppe this summer and also booked for the way home next weekend. I have to say a throughly more enjoyable experience than the Dover ferries or the tunnel. That's without taking this Non EU migrant mess into account.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Have the problems increased since the UK Border contrrol was in Calais and the French one in Dover? In the old days when the Border control was in UK any people not admitted wree just sent back to France. Would that work if we returned to that system? Perhaps it would make France take more responsibility.

I actually think currently it's a good system. But it's what's happening in North Africa and the Middle East that's causing the mass swam.

 

[BensGrandad]

I wonder why they havent opened Boulogne or Dunkirk and diverted some of the ferries especially for cargo vehicles.

Lorries used to go Portsmouth to Caen and Le Havre even 2 a day of the ferries from Dover would ease the problems.