France rounds up migrant traffickers

FRENCH POLICE have started an intensive campaign to root out the traffickers in human misery - those who have attracted crowds of illegal migrants to the Channel coast with a promise of a clandestine passage to Britain.

Almost 100 people, mostly migrants, were arrested in the French port of Calais yesterday morning and on Tuesday night but there were also raids at several railway stations in Paris and on suspected illegal entry points along the eastern and south-eastern frontiers of France.

Police sources admitted that, in the early stages, the operation had mostly picked up the "innocent" victims of the traffic, including would- be migrants to Britain from Albania and Kosovo. Others - claiming to be Kosovars - are believed to have actually come from countries such as Iraq, Algeria, Romania, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

By the end of this week, the security service responsible for border protection, the Police aux Frontieres (PAF), hopes to have broken down, or at least interrupted, the "underground railway" that has been bringing the immigrants from the Swiss and Italian frontiers to the Channel ports.

Judicial sources admit, however, that the traffic has become so lucrative - pounds 400 to hide a migrant in a car boot or lorry trailer for the Channel crossing - that local, "amateur" smugglers are becoming involved.

"At that price, previously law-abiding people in Calais are being tempted to make a quick profit," said an official in the Calais public prosecutor's office.

This week's clampdown comes after the renewed concern expressed by the British Government to the French authorities after the violent skirmishes between migrants and local youths in Dover at the weekend.

There has also, however, been increasing pressure on the French government to relieve the problems in Calais, where up to 200 people at any one time, including scores of children, have been squatting in makeshift shelters in the centre of the town during the summer.

The local authorities have moved some of the most vulnerable into apartments and even a hospital in recent days but the migrants are often reluctant to leave their shelters. According to police, the professional smugglers warn that if they leave the squatter camp, they will lose their place in the "queue" for a clandestine ride to Kent.

The professional people-smuggling networks, with tentacles in Turkey, Britain, the Netherlands and the Balkans, make subtle use of the different laws on illegal immigration and political asylum across Europe. Under French law, it is not possible for the authorities simply to expel anyone who comes from a war zone or a country in civil conflict. However, the immediate benefits available to migrants are deliberately niggardly in France but more generous in Britain.

Hence the crowds assembling at the Channel ports. The illegal migrants - wherever they truly come from - are told to pose as Kosovo Albanians (avoiding expulsion by the French authorities) until they reach the promised land in Britain. One French police official placed part of the blame yesterday on "British law, which is much more flexible on political asylum than ours. You only have to ask over there to obtain a certain number of benefits. It is a real El Dorado."

The first aim of yesterday's 96 arrests in the Calais area was to sort out the genuine Kosovars, or other asylum- seekers from conflict zones, from bogus or economic refugees. Further arrests are expected in the next few days.

Of 47 people arrested yesterday morning, 21 were found to be illegal immigrants with no immunity from immediate expulsion from France. Many of these were Albanians, posing as Kosovo Albanians. Of 49 people arrested the previous night, 30 were identified as Albanians, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis, liable for immediate expulsion.

Others are believed to include genuine Kosovars; some others are Iraqis and Afghans, who also enjoy similar immunity from expulsion.