Meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE)&nbsp;on the situation in Calais in the EP in Brussels. Exchange of views with Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, and statements by&nbsp;Ana GOMES (S&amp;D, PT), Rapporteur, and Marie-Christine VERGIAT (GUE/NGL, FR).

Brussels

exchange of views

meeting

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

respect for human rights in the world (T)

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

VERGIAT, Marie-Christine (GUE/NGL, FR)

GOMES, Ana (S&D, PT)

Calais

TOUBON, Jacques (EPP-DE, FR)

Situation in Calais: extracts from the exchange of views with Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights at the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Arrival of Jacques TOUBON to LIBE Committee. Chair Claude MORAES asks him to take the place at the tribune. 

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, (on the state of emergency in France) The general criticism is that there seems to be a confusion between the state of the emergency which is provisional, temporal and exceptional in beefing up security powers, with the usual common law provisions.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, Today in Calais, what we see is a situation which the French government has great difficulties in dealing with.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, In this region, today, we&rsquo;re probably looking at a thousand, 1200, 1300... of unaccompanied minors. In other words, children or adolescents who do not have any family with them, who have no family environment except a criminal environment with traffickers, with people seeking to exploit them, who may be subject of violence, including sexual violence.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, An operation to try to dismantle this shantytown has been started, an operation which when it comes to the humanitarian considerations is perfectly justified, because there are several thousand people living in thisshantytown, living in conditions which are completely unacceptable, completely unacceptable in a country such as France at the end of 2016.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, Todaym we can state that France, which is considered the country of human rights, is drifting from that role and currently many third country nationals who have an equal right to their human rights, are currently not able to access these rights because of the laws, of the rules... or the ways in which these laws are enforced.

SOUNDBITE (French), Ana GOMES (S&amp;D, PT), Rapporteur, The situation is even worse for unaccompanied minors and I&rsquo;m grateful to you for mentioning that. I&rsquo;ve seen that the UK took ten of those unaccompanied minors yesterday or today, but there is over a thousand of them there as you said and this is unacceptable.

SOUNDBITE (French), Marie-Christine VERGIAT (GUE/NGL, FR), I would insist, and I&rsquo;d like to have your opinion on this, that at least the housing and reception centres would be used to shelter and protect unaccompanied minors. Indeed there are over 1200 of them according to a survey of last week by &ldquo;France Terre d&rsquo;asile&rdquo;

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, Are we going to get to an agreement (between the UK and France) about the relocation of 300, 400 or 500 youngsters? This is a challenge. What is clear is that the UK government must be aware that they have a responsibility. Particularly as we are looking at a system in which they exported their border to the other side of the Channel, to France. And in those circumstances I think that the UK government has even more than a moral duty, it has a legal obligation to apply Article 8 of the Dublin Convention.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jacques TOUBON, French Defender of Rights, We must not destroy the current more permanent centres, such as the provisional accommodation centre for 1500 people, which is actually containers, and the Jules Ferry family Centre which provides 450 places in pre-fabricated buildings. If we use those, we could in fact house all of the minors and protect them while processing their relocations with the UK government.