Demonstration at the French Consulate

About 20 people demonstrated today (9 February) at lunch time in front of the French consulate in Cromwell Rd, London. The demo had been called by London NoBorders to protest the police raid of the "Kronstadt Hangar" by French authorities in Calais last Sunday.

People put up banners and distributed leaflets. Police was around and made sure no protester got inside the consulate.

Demonstration at French Consulate

Demonstration at French Consulate

Demonstration at French Consulate 9th February

Text from the distributed leaflet:

Solidarity is not a crime

On the afternoon of 7th February French riot police raided the "Kronstadt Hangar",
a self-organised space for migrants and activists in Calais, France. 20 volunteers
who were inside the building at this time got arrested and brought to police stations,
doors and windows got smashed and parts of the interior destroyed. The project has been
opened to the public only on Saturday, one day before. The day before Calais mayor
Natacha Bouchard threatend that she would do "everything possible" to prevent the
space from opening.

The "Kronstadt Hangar" was set up by the NoBorders Network and SoS Sans Papier. It is
the aim of the project to create a safe space, where migrants and supporters can meet
without harassment by the police and to give the migrants a voice of their own.
Several hundred migrants, from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and others,
currently have to sleep in the woods around Calais. With the authorities blocking any
attempts to create a place for migrants to shelter from constant police harassment or
from the bitterly cold winter, the Kronstadt Hangar intervention was made in the name
of common human respect as well as resistance to an increasingly fascist EU border policy.

We protest against the repression of volunteers who try to provide homeless migrants
with a minimum of support. We are outraged by the violence of the French authorities.

While the french government is responsible for the police repression, both the French
and the British governments are responsible for the desperate situation of the migrants,
who are not allowed to enter the UK to claim asylum or refugee status.

We demand an immidiate end of the repression against volunteers in Calais and the
opening of the border between the UK and France! The transnational NoBorders Network
will continue its work in Calais. The authorities in Calais have been trying to remove
migrants from Calais for years without success, because they are in denial about the
terminal reality of the un-equal world we live in. This is not over, solidarity and
resistance for the right to freedom of movement will continue.

For freedom of movement! No borders, no nations!

for more info:
http://london.noborders.org.uk
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com