Refugees? What Refugees? #2

On Wednesday I was in Calais. We went over primarily to pick up some wine, the famous ‘booze cruise’, but also to have a pleasant day out and a good meal. When we got there we had quite a surprise.

One of our favourite booze shops is Pidou, so we headed for the Marck branch of Pidou which is no more than three or four miles from the tunnel. Once we left the security of the tunnel area, which now resembles a high security penitentiary in a Hollywood blockbuster, we began to witness the new phase of the ‘refugee crisis’ or alien invasion as it actually is.

First we saw illegals just over the barrier at the side of the motorway then a handful trudging down the hard shoulder itself. None looked over thirty and I’d say most were in their very early twenties or late teens. Most had their hoods up and we didn’t see a single woman.

As we left the motorway, after about ten minutes, their numbers increased dramatically and for the first time ever I saw gangs of them all around the commercial area where Pidou is situated. Many were sidling towards parked trucks and vans others were just standing around in large groups. I have  have never witnessed such numbers and the overhead signs on the motorway were warning motorists to be careful as there were pedestrians on the motorway.

Undeterred we pulled into the Pidou car park and were quite relieved to to spot our first troop of CRS officers in their transport actually parked in the car park waiting for the trouble to start, as we witnessed a couple of years ago in Vienna. Click on here to read about our experience in Austria and Germany. As we left we saw CRS units all over the area including at petrol stations and motorway service areas as well as the corner of most roads within a few miles of the tunnel.

Anybody who thinks the problem of illegal migration, begun by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is over is sadly misguided and anybody who thinks these people are poor refugees on their way to safety from persecution is clearly stupid. I’ve been travelling regularly around Calais and Boulogne for around thirty years and have never before witnessed such numbers of illegals, especially in that part of Calais, even when Lily Allen was rebooting her career by vising Sangatte and committing hard core virtue signalling. We have a problem and it’s not going to go away.

In the end we evacuated, ironically via Dunkirk, and spent the rest of the day in the lovely Flemish towns of Ieper and Diksmuide.

As we headed back for our return on le Shuttle I received a text warning of delays at the tunnel because of security problems. Hardly surprising and we were only delayed by twenty minutes although the queues were so horrific that we had to wait to eat until we were back in Blighty and picked up a curry takeaway.

If you are unaware the CRS (Compagnies Republicaines de Securite) are the general reserve of the French National Police and are involved in general security but are especially trained to deal with crowds and riots. They are heavily armed and resemble Robocop when they go into action, which we witnessed first hand when we were caught up in serious disorder in Paris in 2000 and after a football game in Lyon a few years later when tear gas was fired by the CRS. They are not to be messed with and the fact that they have been deployed in such numbers in the Calais area is an indication of the severity of the problem.