General Chat

Not really known to agree with French however, if we did the sensible thing and stopped handing out benefits/free medical care/housing on arrival/soon after - numbers would drop - as it is, they see GB as the 'land of milk and honey'.

Just an anecdote of sorts.

During the mighty storm we had in the UK no so long ago, I helped an elderly lady to carry bags of sand to prevent her lovely seaside back garden from being flooded at high tide.

Bag after bag I placed inside her wooden fence with limited success at stopping the deluge. Then, a brain wave - which is unusual for me!

I took the sand bags from inside her fence & repositioned them outside instead. Total success & relief all around.

The 'strategy' might work if applied to the subject of this thread.

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

They have never forgiven us for Agincourt.........................

well clearly the French are at fault here - they should have cameras on those roads the lorries use on the way to Calais

my son in law and grandson are both lorry drivers who spend the week on the continent delivering and picking up and re delivering and then their final load to come back to the UK

They have said the slow road that the lorry drivers take to the port is an open invitation to the migrants who swarm behind lorries trying to getting in them or just hanging on so they can try to get in the lorry when its stops .

Both the companies who employ them get the arse if migrants get on the lorry and they get fined ,they take it out on the lorry driver even though he cant drive and see if migrants are trying to board

Those lorries whose back doors arent bolted are very short sighted .my grandson did have a case where his lorry had had its side tarpaulin sheet metal tie cut by wire clippers and then re-welded up ,the customs found the migrants with the CO2 probe.

grandson got a discipline for it even though he had followed all procedures and parked in what supposed to be secure lorry park to wait the early morning ferry

A lot of these people trying to get to the UK are not truly escaping persecution or terror they are economic migrants.

The Mayor is saying that the UK must STOP making benefits so easy to obtain, if that were implemented the UK wouldn't be such an attractive option and the migrants wouldn't be living rough in Calais.

Migrants in fear for their lives should claim asylum in the first safe country they enter. Many of those countries just don't want them.

If the migrants destroy their passports and paperwork where are they to be repatriated to? That is one of the tricks they employ, authorities cannot return them to their country of origin if they cannot prove where that is.

thanks for those figures Mayfield - very graphic

That seems to be the experience of one of the Kentonline posters
..............
I have travelled in and out of france in the last week. On the journey out of Calais to within france migrants were being driven back with batons to the port.

On the journey back to Calais the migrants in their 100's were allowed to surround vehicles including cars with children on it. There were five policeman in total eating a takeway far from where the queues and migrants were.
..................

My dad went to calais earlier this week to do his three monthly fag run.....He said it was terrible on the run down to the port. I don't suppose the french police are that bothered, at least it gets the immigrants out of their country

Pertaining to Asylum seekers
http://www.w2eu.info/

Kent on line - some of the comments are rather extreme to say the least!

http://tiny.cc/0nnplx

I just had a look at some figures after reading this thread out of interest.
Of course figures vary but a rough average was.



France 640,679 sq km - population 64 million.
Bulgaria 110,994 sq km - population 7 million.
Belgium 305,528 sq km - population 11 million.
Spain 505,992 sq km - population 47 million.
Germany 357,168 sq km - population 81 million.
Poland 312,679 sq km - population 38 million.

UK 243,610 sq km - population 63 million.

To those who say we should take our share, I reckon we have got that already ;-)

Living in the SE, our news and local papers are full of this and other Calais migrant stories.

TBH, I think it was a cry for help in the only way the Mayor of Calais thinks will get some attention.
Geographical we aren’t ‘full’ if we were willing to build on green field sites – what would be a strain is providing the support structure and jobs.

We are not alone in this. Other European countries are under as much pressure as the UK. As much as I dislike the current EU format, if the Members could face up to the problem in a united way, a fund could be created by the targeted or more wealthy countries to provide the same level of financial support, regardless of where they ‘claim asylum’. Many migrants would, given the opportunity. That way there would be not attraction to wait until they manage to reach their target destination. Benefits would be the same, regardless!

In the short term, if the French agreed, I’d like to see the UK border agency open a branch in Calais to filter the genuine asylum seekers from the economic migrants. If they get turned down on the spot, they get shipped back to their home countries.

Probably too idealistic, but better than a blanket ‘keep them out’.

well as France owns most of our ferry ports
maybe the problem is with them
they have taken great delight in sending all the refugees immigrants ect
over here for years :-( :-(
maybe we should have signs at our pots saying we are FULL ;-) ;-)

I'm not sure what the mayor of Calais thinks we can do about it.

my daughter-in-law's father was in the FFL - she's half Belgian

Interesting that the majority you see are young single people after improving their economic lot, not the terrified families with children escaping from a war zone, who are simply happy to reach a safe place.

They are Ann. :-| :-| :-|
They are employed in Places like the Sudan, and they do a good job
They are FOREIGN Legion, only operating on foreign soil.
I was going to join them once ex British Army, but I was too soft (Then).

what about the French Foreign Legion? thought they were supposed to be hard

Totally agree with you ANN. We Have the same problem with Indonesia. :-( :-(

Hope I havn't Killed your thread,although i've had plenty of time to do it. he he.