“People are dying 200-300 meters away from the beaches”: interview with Thomas Chambon, Utopia 56

For several years now, migrants trying to reach England have been taking a particularly dangerous route: the one that leads from the coasts of Pas-de-Calais to the cliffs of Dover across the waters of the English Channel. This trend is skyrocketing and is also causing a dramatic increase in the number of migrants dying at sea.

Alongside the rise in departures by sea, police violence along the coastline is multiplying, according to many observers. Regular use of tear gas grenades, boats being slashed with knives, daily assaults… We spoke to Thomas Chambon, field officer for outreach patrols (“maraudes”) along the coast for the NGO Utopia 56.

INDEX: What is the “coastal outreach team” (“maraude du littoral”) set up by Utopia 56?

Thomas Chambon: Since 2016, in Calais, as Utopia 56, we have established an emergency phone number that is distributed in the camps. People call us because they want shelter, they need emergency accommodation, they are hungry, thirsty, have no blankets or tents, they’ve had a problem with the police, or sometimes there’s a big fight, they are in danger, and they want us to call the police to protect them. At first, this was mostly in Calais itself. Starting in 2018, we began receiving calls from people located 20 kilometers from Calais, people saying, “We’re here, we’re soaked, we’re hungry and thirsty.” After receiving calls from areas distant from the towns of Calais and Grande-Synthe, we decided to set up the coastal outreach, meaning a mobile team along the coast that strives to go where we are called in order to assist people in situations of great vulnerability and to document any police violence they experience.

Our goal is, first, to prevent deaths on land due to hypothermia from being wet after trying to board a boat, and second, to ensure that the fundamental rights of people in France are respected, thus pushing the State to act. Because in fact, there are protocols to clothe people and offer them emergency shelter at night. They do exist. But they are almost never implemented. So we intervene to fill in the gaps for emergencies.

Often, we find ourselves explaining to the police and firefighters their own duties. We tell the police, in particular, “Your role is not just to prevent people from crossing, you must also protect people.” It’s not because people have just tried to cross a border in a small boat that they should be left soaking wet at 3 a.m., in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter. And it’s not because people are doing something illegal that they should be tear-gassed, beaten, or put in danger by having their boats slashed with knives while in the water. In reality, there are other solutions than tear gas, batons, and slashing boats. But the State does not consider them; its agents do not protect, do not inform in the camps, and do not provide shelter. The State’s only response along the coast is: we hit, we gas, and we destroy the camps.

INDEX: When did you start noticing that migrants were trying to reach England by sea? In your view, what explains this evolution?

TC: It was around 2018 that we began to hear people in informal migrant camps in the region saying, “We’re going to try by boat…” Everyone was rather surprised to hear this because before, it was only by truck. At first, very few people talked about boats. It started gradually, but eventually the phenomenon skyrocketed.

In fact, this is the result of a policy, the outcome of a process that started in 2003 when the Touquet agreements were signed, placing the border between France and England in the port of Calais, on French soil. Since then, France has been paid by England to protect this border, which it also does with kilometers of fences and barbed wire surrounding the roads and port of Calais. Over the years, these measures have expanded, aiming not only to prevent people from leaving but also to stop them from settling near the border. These measures have also evolved technically, making truck crossings increasingly difficult. Now, English customs have all sorts of scanners to detect possible humans onboard: some analyze temperature, CO2 levels, and customs officers also use dogs… Surely, since there were more failures, smugglers tried to find another way to keep meeting the demand and keep exploiting all these people who are just trying to find a place to live safely. The answer has been to overload Zodiac boats to cross the Channel.

INDEX: How have French authorities, particularly the police, responded to this phenomenon of sea departures?

TC: From the start, the police response was to prevent people from leaving at all costs because England pays, and they have to show that they’re doing something. In this sense, police violence on the beaches has become normalized. Quite quickly and increasingly, reports gathered by our teams described tear-gassings, violence, beatings with batons, boats slashed with knives, including at sea. The number of police brutality cases is enormous, even though we cannot get exact figures. Sometimes, police simply come to remove people from the dunes, telling them “We’ll wait for you tomorrow!” implying that if they come back, they will be ready to beat them. But often, they literally fire tear gas grenades at the boats. Once, it happened in the middle of winter near Gravelines, they fired at a Zodiac, and the boat caught fire with people still on board, who fell into the mud—in the middle of winter, at 3 a.m. Another time, near Boulogne, we saw many police cars with flashing lights on a cliff overlooking a beach. We approached and saw officers firing tear gas down onto the beach where a group of migrants was trying to gather to leave by boat. They were firing like that at people 30 meters below. One child was left with a head wound caused by a projectile that night. All of this is extremely dangerous, with boats packed to the brink, people who cannot swim, and the cold water of the Channel… It is completely illegal; it endangers lives. The number of kids we’ve picked up on roads with clothes smelling of tear gas is mind-blowing. What’s even crazier is that the police know very well that this doesn’t accomplish much: all these people will try to cross the Channel again, sooner or later.

INDEX: How do these practices endanger people trying to cross the Channel?

TC: On the one hand, it is very immediate, as I described with the boat that caught fire. These practices can also cause panic that leads to tragedy, as was the case for Jumaa [Al Hasan, 27, who disappeared during the night of March 2-3, 2024, in the Aa canal]. But one must also understand that often, departures involve 50, 60, 80, or over 100 people trying to get onto one or more boats. These people are tense, pushed to hurry because of the constant repression. And in the middle of all this, the police arrive and immediately gas them: this adds a lot of tension, rush, and anger, and thus increases the danger at departure.

In recent years, deaths at sea mainly happened during shipwrecks, far from the coast, in open water. Since last autumn, it has been increasingly close to the shore. In September, a young Eritrean woman died on a beach in Sangatte, trampled by a crowd [at Blériot-Plage on the 26th of September]. This happened while police were present, people were trying to reach the sea, one boat managed to leave, and in the chaos, someone was pushed and trampled. We’ve already had calls from people at sea saying their boat was punctured; in fact, police had stabbed holes in it with knives, but people still went to sea in it. So now, it’s no longer waves or fuel problems that kill people offshore. Now, people die 200-300 meters from the beaches. For us, there is a link between these deaths and the violence of police repression. The European and French policy of refusing to welcome migrants and responding to their presence with police and violence pushes these people to take more and more risks, while also fueling mafia networks.

INDEX: This risk-taking caused by police repression seems to have amplified the phenomenon, rather than restricted it. Which geographical areas are currently affected by sea departures?

TC: At the very beginning, crossings were mainly around Calais and Dunkirk. Due to the militarization at the border and the heavy-handed interventions in boat departure areas—increasing police presence, controls, and violence—smugglers have pushed departure zones further and further away. Now, it goes as far as the Bay of Somme, more than 100 km by highway from Calais. More and more people leave from farther and farther away, even if the majority of departures still take place roughly between Dunkirk and Boulogne-sur-Mer. These attempts from such distant zones are simply explained by migrants trying to depart from beaches without police. But the farther you get from Calais and Dunkirk, the more dangerous the crossing is, because the distance to England is multiplied by two or three. Moreover, this phenomenon isolates migrants by distancing them from the network of associations based around Calais that could provide some assistance… When people try to leave from Le Touquet, a richer area where they are even less welcome, there are few people to help them.

INDEX: What do you do when you witness or observe police violence? Has Utopia taken any legal steps, such as lodging complaints?

TC: First, we document: we keep records, systematize observations and data collection, write reports, and archive videos filmed by migrants themselves. When we receive a testimony or when we witness police violence ourselves, we file complaints with the Defender of Rights and, if possible, with the IGPN or IGGN [the French police and Gendarmerie watchdog authorities]. Very often, we get no response, and in any case, these procedures tend to drag on. But we do not file complaints every time. The fact is, there are really many, many cases; and very often, it is the migrants themselves who should file complaints—we cannot do it on their behalf. And it is really not easy for these people to take on such legal battles given their extremely precarious situation.

[Interview by INDEX on 03.06.2024]