Comments on the clearing of the Calais ‘Jungle’
October 26th, 2016Commentators approve the decision to dismantle the refugee camp in Calais after almost two years of scandalous existence, but regard it as just a symptom of a larger problem.
In Magyar Idők, Levente Sitkei accuses the international press of presenting the Calais migrants as innocent victims of police violence. They show suffering minors on the one hand and masked police shock troops on the other and there is no doubt who will be the winner of such a comparison, he writes. He also scorns decision makers who he believes don’t know anything about these migrants, and expect them to do the paperwork local citizens are accustomed to in their dealings with the authorities. For those in power, Sitkei writes, these people are just numbers and they don’t even care if many of them will be back to Calais soon after relocation.
Magyar Nemzet’s Áron Kuthi approves the decision to dismantle the ‘Jungle’, but remarks that it should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. Its mere existence lured more and more arrivals. The distribution of many thousands throughout France is also a risky operation, he suggests. He also criticises the international press for failing to report on the level of opposition to the arrivals of the Calais migrants in the towns and villages where they are being relocated. What is happening, Kuthi writes, is just a symptom of the general migration crisis, in the face of which French and European decision makers are simply at a loss – they have no solutions to offer.