A French state report has concluded it is “plausible” that police and gendarmes have abused their powers and mistreated migrants and refugees in Calais.
The inquiry was undertaken after Human Rights Watch published allegations in July of police using violence and brutality against migrants and refugees since a makeshift camp in the city was evacuated and demolished last year.
The HRW report, Like Living in Hell, accused French police of recurrent, gratuitous violence against migrants who had stayed in or returned to Calais and against groups that were trying to provide them with food and blankets.
Campaigners, migrants and refugees described systematic brutality, saying police sprayed people with pepper spray as they slept, sprayed their food and bedding and confiscated blankets, shoes and food.
When HRW published the allegations, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said there would be “precise answers” and the interior ministry tasked security force watchdogs with producing a report.
The report released this week says the policing situation in Calais and around Dunkirk is “particularly difficult” but does not let officers off the hook.
“The mass of written and oral testimony – even though it doesn’t represent formal proof – leads us to consider it plausible that there was a breach in security force doctrine and ethics,” the reports concludes.
The report says the allegations of pepper spray use by security forces against migrants are “highly improbable” and “without foundation”. But it acknowledges perceived “abusive use of teargas” to disrupt migrants or refugees sleeping and to disrupt the handing out of meals by charities.
The report says testimony appeared to confirm “the disproportionate, indeed unjustified, use of force” against migrants and humanitarian organisations.
The French interior ministry said: “There were no elements that proved the most serious allegations made by Human Rights Watch.”
Last October the French state closed and demolished the Calais migrant camp, where thousands of people had been living in squalid conditions in the hope of getting into Britain by stowing away on vehicles entering the Channel tunnel.
One year on, charities and authorities estimate that around 700 migrants and refugees have returned to the area and are sleeping rough in parks or forests in precarious conditions without proper access to sanitation or shelter. A further 1,000 migrants, including women and families, are thought to be scattered across the region.
In June a local court ordered authorities to provide access to drinking water, toilets and showers to migrants and to allow charities to hand out meals. At the same time, it upheld government decisions to deploy extra riot police and not to build a new reception centre.
The state appealed against the court ruling that stipulated it must provide basic water and sanitation.
