The LR mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, on Wednesday challenged Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin in a letter pointing to "extremely serious events" involving migrants in his city in recent days.

"I call on your direct intervention so that concrete and operational measures are taken as soon as possible" guaranteeing "the safety of Calaisians," Bouchart wrote in the letter, also sent to AFP.

Brawls and assault in hospital

She evokes in this letter a brawl involving thirty migrants in the city center of Calais Sunday afternoon, a second Monday and an "aggression perpetrated within the permanence of access to care" Tuesday.

During this latest attack, a man was "angry with the medical staff" and "brandished a cutter while threatening them," writes the mayor. The interpreter employed by the hospital was wounded in the hand "by interposing to disarm the attacker", she adds. The mayor asked to be heard by the National Assembly and the Senate as part of the examination of the draft law on immigration.

Several arrests

Sunday's brawl, involving a "significant number" of people, resulted in the arrest of four individuals, three of whom were tried in immediate appearance Wednesday afternoon, told AFP the prosecutor of the Republic of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras. The outcome of these appearances was not yet known in the early evening.

The prosecutor also confirmed that an individual had "been arrested after taking out a cutter" during an interview at the permanent access to care, then placed in police custody. The doctor who examined him, however, considered that he should be hospitalized because of his mental state.

Le Bras was not aware of a brawl on Monday but added that a migrant had been arrested that day "for a case of sexual assault that gave rise to a summons to court" and that another had been arrested on the 23rd for possession of narcotics. He notes "in recent days, a number of facts committed on Calais involving people who may be or be migrants".

  • Society
  • Calais
  • Pas-de-Calais
  • Hauts-de-France
  • Nord-Pas-de-Calais
  • Gerald Darmanin
  • Migrants
  • Aggression