Motorhome Facts Forum banner

Calais today, sat 3/10/15. Not nice.

8K views 49 replies 30 participants last post by  GEMMY 
#1 ·
I travelled back home today after a 2 week jaunt over to eastern France. Had a lovely 2 weeks and a few days in Paris.

I wasn't prepared for getting into the Ferry Port.

At 0930 I travelled down the main autoroute towards the port with a constant flow of others. My motorhome was loaded with two kids ( 11 weeks and 3.5 yrs old) and my wife. Kayak on the roof, bikes locked on the rear rack.

The traffic started to slow between the last two junctions , just after the old Eastenders Wine and Beer company building.

To my horror I saw my TV SCREEN, Playing the daily news out through my windscreen. A hord of men walking slowly down the ever slowing motorway.

Doors locked. Windows up.

The group at first started trying to get into the horse box in front of me, really viciously trying to break the locks. Some of the group walked past me and centered their attention on an Irish artic, even standing in his way to make him stop. The driver just kept moving slowly in his crawler gear, so the mob decided to pull anything and everything from behind his cab, under his trailer and get his refer doors open.
At this point, my back door gets pinged, the wife screams, and I have intruders!

I just out my seat, to the back of the van to see a man trying to steal my bottle of coolant (leaking engine! ) .
I recover my coolant and get back in the van locking the door, at which point I see people running to the rear of my van.....

We try to keep moving but I realise I'm now carrying some extra passengers ( the wife's screams as she looks at them through the heki bubble).

My drivers windows are now being bashed into to get my bottle of drink in the cup holder, and every single person past me is trying the doors, windows, locker hatches.

Slowly work out to drive really slowly but closely to the Irish truck my right hand drive to his left hand drive, until we reach the road block. An orange truck strap was being used to stop everyone on the road and backed up with cones. The group,were allowing cars past, and taking a few seconds to get it ratcheted back up taught. I decided that I was off, so floored it, aimed at the man in the road and his cones and sent them flying.

By now I was LIVID.

At the start of the new fencing stood a group of police officers and a van.

I stopped and told them I had people on the roof. Drive on Monsieur !

So I did, for a hundred metres or so, stopped and now incensed, climbed my roof to remove my stow aways. The first decided my angry rankings were sufficient to jump, the second decided he was still going to try and hide in my kayak!

A slight scuffle and a few punches later, my last visitor was removed, by which point the Police man had arrived and told me to stop hitting him!

A check of the roof box found no more visitors, but they had broken one of the box locks and stolen some securing straps.

The crows near my van where very pleasant chanting " **** you, **** you **** you" repeatedly.

I drive on up the road to where another police was parked and I get waved on, past a few more hundred immigrants walking inside the secure area!

A few people ask in the queue if we are ok, and my 3 year old, still shaken from the experience continues to ask about the bad men.

Get to the port and there is a big queue. Border checks reveal that there are numerous intruders in the port area, that the Chunnel is closed after a late night invasion, and the in coming vessels are UN able to un-load due to the immigrants on the quayside.

It took my the majority of the crossing and a large coffee to calm me down.

I'm 38 and a decent sized lad, enough to think twice about when angry. What would happen to others not as aggressive / impulsive ?

When waiting in the port we queued up behind a German registered caravan. They were sticking their rear wind shut after it had been ripped open curtain torn and 6 people got in. They were panic stricken.

I hear stories about poor this and poor that. The people I encountered were not weak, starving people. They were fit and strong young aggressive men forcing their hands, mob rule style to get into the UK. There were no women or children, just young men, dressed for action.

I work long and hard hours to pay for my family holidays and these actions are not right. There isn't too much damage to my van, but the reputation of Calais had gone to the dogs. I've written to both the ferry company and town council for Calais, and replied to comments on a BBC WEB story about the Eurotunnel, but they don't want to know.

I wanted to share my interesting experience with you guys and remind you to lock up, close up and don't have anything valuable on offer.

My dash cam recorded it, but I left it running and after 10 minutes it wipes itself.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Yet another reason to use the chunnel


tony
 
  • Like
Reactions: sennen523
#8 ·
We travel regularly with Eurotunnel, last trip UK to France had a 12 hour delay. As we arrived at the Coquelles platform they wouldn't open the train doors for about 25 minutes as there was "Migrant activity on the platform".

Whilst in the Folkestone terminal the message was a technical problem causing delays, the same on the train. We were just irritated as we had 2 appointments further east in France and were being delayed. On arriving late at our first appointment we were told by our French contact that the reason for our delay was a young man had been killed by a train and the Calais terminal had an invasion of immigrants which put our own situation into perspective.

We travel about every 6 - 8 weeks with Eurotunnel, but this last trip about 10 days ago shocked us as to the extent that on exiting the train into the terminal it suddenly looked as though we had driven into a high security prison camp where they we having trouble. Barbed wire, razor wire, huge fences, many police and many 'security' people plus a number of Alsatian dogs.
I travelled a number of times through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin in the old days at the height of the Cold War, that looked like just a mere curiosity compared to this.

Feel very sorry for you and your family robbosps, that must have made you very upset and angry and it's not right that it should happen at all. If any European did what the migrants in Calais were doing we would be arrested immediately. But there are as always other sides to the same story.

I don't have an answer for this massive problem and don't pretend to, but we do speak with French people and 15 years ago met from time to time with young men in north Africa similar to some of the ones you see trying to get into Europe.

Basically as we hear it the French are pretty fed up with these migrants for a different reason to ourselves. They have a group of migrants that openly declare that France is a rubbish place to want to be and live, and these 5 - 10,000 mostly young men live and operate in a small area in northern France trying to get to another country that wont let them in. It is costing France a fortune to try to protect their own country from the obvious needs of having such a large group camped in their town and surroundings, the immigrants will want to eat and do some of the things we all need to do to stay alive.
So France thinks why are we stopping mainly at our own expense these people who patently do not want to be in France, why not let them go to where they want to be. We don't want them camped in Calais it has completely wrecked the town and created all sorts of problems if you live there, and to top it all the migrants don't even want to be there. They also think that no one is stopping these people getting into France in the first place, why should we stop them getting out?

This may or may not be a logical or neighbourly way to think of this problem, but there are politics and finance involved in this too. plus the feelings and interests of people living in Calais and surrounding areas.

What would happen if 10,000 migrants camped at a Welsh port trying to get to Ireland, and when asked why they are there they reply that Ireland is the land of milk and honey and the UK is s..t, would we happily fund protecting Ireland from these hoards and try hard to keep them in that Welsh port? I'm not sure how that would pan out.

Anyway, we will continue to use the Tunnel and build in 'delay' times for our journeys, and hope that we don't have to experience what robbosps family had to go through. We have been lucky in all the trips we have made and although do see immigrants on the road etc they have always been very peaceful and if anything looked very lost and sad.

Maybe it's about time the EU did what it was set up to do and work out a solution that is fair and acceptable to all in Europe, and why do we elect politicians to their elevated jobs if not to get to work and start to sort out this problem rather than pose for sound bites.
 
#9 ·
Glad you survived the encounter it must have been frightening.

Coming home via the Tunnel a week ago on Saturday morning we were concerned that we may encounter problems but fortunately we did not see any immigrants on the road or roadside...we did arrive at the tunnel two hours early and only just made it through the delays caused I think by increased security to catch our scheduled train.

There is a report and more interestingly a video of the problems you encountered on the Daily mail website ...the video ( you do have to watch a short advertisement first !!) shows the immigrants stretching an orange strap across the road ..just as you described ...here is the link ( sorry it is from the Mail :grin2:)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...orm-Channel-Tunnel.html#v-6811899546905391893
 
#10 ·
Why is Europe pussyfooting about with these thugs?

It would appear that they are using violence to try to get their own way so should be rounded up and chucked in the slammer. Once there are enough of them, which wouldn't take very long it seems, they should all be put aboard a ship and taken back to where they originally came from.

The word would soon get round that the effort is not worth it.

Now ducking and waiting for the incoming from the liberal lefties. :surprise:>:)>:)>:)
 
#17 ·
There are suggestions on fun that the post is either a gross exaggeration or not true, I just looked although I am no longer a member on there

Paul.
Only the stupid ones who did not have the ability to read. They picked holes in the story but a sensible long standing member has educated them. Although you cannot educate pork, so some will still not understand him anyway. >:)
 
#16 ·
Maybe they should be rounded up put on a herc, then flown back to where they came from,
I am sure they will soon give up, having to find more money to get back to calais,
They have lost all sympathy claiming they are refugees, they are Thugs,
We were in deippe a couple of weeks ago watching them taunt the security by coming around the fence at the end of the jetty by the sand piles, as they were busy with them others were climbing on trucks further along,
All they were doing was chasing them off with the muzlled dogs,
Felt sorry for the drivers who couldnt rest, having to keep an eye on them, and chasing the away from there trucks,
Misty
 
#18 ·
I feel an urge to pipe the truck exhaust through the trailer.
The poor drivers are fined if any migrants get across.

Ray.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pippin
#26 ·
CRS were used a few weeks back to sort troubles at Coquelles . Perhaps they should now be brought back or better still the Army either French or English .
These people have now forfeited any sympathy from us .As I and others know from past experience in the main they are not refugees but young men just looking for a better life but illegally.
 
#27 ·
Thanks for the supporting comments. I don't use any other forum so can't speak about why people suggest I have exaggerated. I have no reason for exaggerating. I have sent a copy of my post ( with spelling and grammar checked) to my local MP.

If you watch the daily mail linked video, please explain to me how you would reason with these people. As has been said, if I or you did this, we would be locked up.
 
#28 ·
We traveled back on the tunnel last Friday morning without incident other than a one hour delay caused by an earlier incident.

We spent most of Thursday in and around Calais and found it much quieter than usual with almost no sign of "undesirables". We then spent Thursday night on the beach aire which was less than half full but quite peaceful. Never seen it so quiet in Calais in the last ten years so clearly the antics of these people are driving folk away.

The ones we've seen at Calais in the past have nothing to do with refugees, they're not escaping persecution nor do they have any other humanitarian reason for trying to leave France, they're simply young men who fancy their chances of entering the UK illegally for economic gain. They're now committing acts of criminal damage and common assault. The French police have always preferred to shrug their shoulders and turn the other way if possible but until they start treating these people like criminals there is no way forward. They need to arrest and punish (and/or deport) any of them who break the law, just the same as they would with any other criminal - full stop.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top