From Calais Migrant Solidarity

‘They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds’

In recent months, from Ventimiglia to Calais, state violence has increased against those who travel without papers. We see this in the re-introduction of border controls in various states in the Schengen zone that (among other things) resulted in new jungles in places like Ventimiglia, to the subsequent violent destruction of that jungle on the 30th of September, to the vast increase in French and British police in Calais, (plus the army at times), not counting the proliferation of measures that deny people access to European travel papers in the first place. Those who stand in solidarity with them have faced increased levels of repression too.

On December 14th, 2 people connected to the No Border Network will stand trial in Nice and Boulogne, France. One of them was arrested simply for being present in front of the border police station of Menton (on the French side of the border with Italy, close to Ventimiglia) during one of the many deportations of people from France to Italy. The other is accused of having organised riots in the Calais jungle, which is ridiculous, as those living in the jungle are perfectly capable of taking political action on their own intitiative.

These two trials show the willpower of the french and british state to break up the No Border Network, which has struggled for many years for the freedom of movement for all, without which those humanitarian emergency situations that create exiles will never be solved.

Now the french state is trying to muzzle any expression that stands against its goals by establishing a state of emergency, within a Fortress Europe that again reinforces an inside and an outside. We have to, now more than ever, affirm our determination and our unity against the repressive strategies of the state.

Let’s fight back and make December 14th a day of action against state repression, but above all against borders, against deportations and against all nation states.