It has now been over five months since Collective Aid’s WASH centre in the city of Calais was closed by the authorities on March 18th. We have been fighting this decision, filing both an emergency and a substantive appeal at the administrative court in Lille. We have now received a decision from this court on our emergency appeal which sadly was negative. The court has rejected our emergency appeal on the grounds that they did not consider the situation urgent - despite the obvious importance of having access to clean clothes for reasons of health and hygiene.

This decision allows the authorities to continue unhindered with their obstruction of basic services to people on the move in Northern France. Despite the fact that we were the only laundry service available to many people on the move in Calais, the court followed the city of Calais’ argument that people could use other paid laundry services instead - which for many people is impossible in practice. This decision only concerns the emergency appeal however, and we will continue to fight in the substantive procedure.

The closure of the WASH centre is one more move in a long standing policy of obstruction to basic services for people on the move. We have covered the long standing need to increase access to water, hygiene and sanitation for people on the move in the Calais area, in an earlier blog on the closure of the WASH centre that can be found here. The UN has repeatedly made recommendations to that effect and also the administrative court of Lille as well as the French Council of State have ordered the prefecture and the municipality to create access to water points, latrines and showers near the living sites. Nonetheless the authorities continue to obstruct services provided by NGO’s while also failing to improve access themselves.

Continued obstruction of solidarity with people on the move

Collective Aid is not the only organisation affected by the obstructive approach of the local authorities. For example, since October 2023 (when France accepted the recommendations to improve water access) water points provided by Calais Food Collective (CFC) have been seized by the authorities at least four times, and they suspect the authorities are responsible for two more times when water point were removed. Volunteers from Human Rights Observers (HRO), who monitor evictions and other state actions, are often intimidated and obstructed while carrying out peaceful observations. In the case of Collective Aid’s WASH centre, the municipality has decided to take further steps to hinder our work by asking the public prosecutor to open an investigation on the opening of our centre without the permits the city deems necessary - which we have always disputed.

Apart from these obvious forms of obstruction, the state policy of ‘zero points of fixation’ (see our previous blog here) and the continuing evictions, has also made it very difficult to provide our services in a dignified and easily accessible way as, although we work across different places in the city, living sites are spread out and forever changing. People therefore often have to walk significant distances and spend a lot of time just to get their basic needs met as much as is possible in these conditions.

Mobile laundry service and tent distributions

While the WASH centre remains closed Collective Aid provides access to clean, dry clothes to people on the move in the Calais area through a mobile laundry service. This means that we go on outreach trips to visit living sites or other points where people gather. Our volunteers take the van, tell people about our services, and directly take the laundry to be washed or make an appointment to come back later. Often we combine our services with those of other organisations, for example by joining the charging sessions of our partner Channel Info Project, along with other organizations such as MSF.

Apart from mobile laundry we continue our service of distributing tents to people in need of shelter. Evictions of informal living sites continue to take place about every two days, with tents being seized by the police. For example, in June at least 50 evictions on 10 informal living sites took place, with at least 129 tents, 19 tarps and 5 sleeping bags seized, resulting in the displacement of at least 633. These numbers are just an example of one month of a policy of harassment that has been going on for years. Of course, these evictions lead to an extra demand for tents, especially when the weather is worse, so that people can still have some basic shelter. For example, in July, over the span of two weeks, we provided one family of eight people with tents three different times after they informed us that their tents had, again and again, been taken and destroyed by the police.

*Loads of laundry done and tents distributed per week*

Despite the obstructions placed in the way of our work, Collective Aid and other organisations working in Calais continue to provide basic necessary services to the best of our ability. At the same time we call upon the state authorities to fulfil their obligations to provide the required services with dignity instead of leaving it up to civil society to fill the gaps in humanity and solidarity.

Words by Martin Spelt

Continued obstruction of assistance by the authorities in Northern France