France arrests two Brits for ‘inciting hatred’ after they ‘tried to participate in banned anti-migrant protest’ close to Calais
Two British nationals who came to France to allegedly take part in a banned protest against migrants were arrested and taken into custody for ‘inciting hatred.’
The two men were broadcasting live videos and were arrested near the northern town of Calais on Sunday evening, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture said.
The pair were placed in custody for inciting hatred and participating in a group with the aim of preparing violence, based on comments made on social media, the public prosecutor’s office said.
This comes as French authorities stepped up actions against British activists who make anti-migrant videos after local groups complained of intimidation.
France’s version of MI5 and scores of police mobilised to repel a planned ‘D-Day style invasion’ by British protesters demonstrating against small boat migrants on Saturday.
Police imposed a sweeping ban on gatherings between Calais and Dunkirk and threatened to arrest and deport anyone arriving from the UK.
The ban was set to lift at 8am on Monday but has now been extended until Wednesday.
‘While no large gatherings have been observed so far, several accounts have made posts this weekend indicating that the operation is continuing,’ the prefectures wrote in a statement overnight.
Migrants attempt to cross the channel to the UK in small boats from Gravelines
Migrants on an inflatable dinghy attempting to cross the channel
British protest leader Daniel Thomas, an ex-convict banned from France after harassing charity workers last month, appeared to have slipped into the country via Belgium.
He claimed his self-styled ‘Operation Overlord’ would draw more than 15,000 ‘proud Englishmen’ to France to ‘stop the boats’, however just one thousandth of his predicted volunteer army arrived.
Rather than slashing any dinghies, or demonstrating at a migrant camp, his band of around a dozen followers simply gathered on a beach and waved flags.
A simultaneous protest promoted by Thomas in Dover, which he claimed would ‘bring it to a standstill’, turned out to be a small gathering in a pub followed by a march down a road.
But French authorities, who had been appalled by attention-seeking visits to beaches and migrant camps by Thomas and fellow ‘right-wing patriots’ late last year, which were then posted online, were not taking any risks.
As well as large squads of Police Nationale officers, and gendarmes, those looking to stamp out British protests around Calais included ‘multiple members of the DGSI’, or General Directorate for Internal Security.
This is France’s principal domestic security service, and operates in much the same way as MI5 does in Britain.
‘Plain-clothes DGSI officers were out in force along the northern coast, and looking for British troublemakers,’ a senior law and order source told the Mail on Sunday.
‘They supported police and gendarmes in making sure there was no large scale invasion.’
Prefectures in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais areas of France also issued orders prohibiting any members of groups such as Raise the Colours (RTC) – a group Thomas split from last week, hours before he and nine of its members were banned from France – from operating over the weekend, citing ‘serious risks to public order’.
Migrants attempting to cross the channel
A French official statement read: ‘British nationals belonging to these movements, who are checked by law enforcement, will be returned to the border as quickly as possible.’
The statement referred to the group adhering to ‘a xenophobic and anti-immigration ideology that creates a clear risk of public disorder.
‘State services, particularly the internal security forces, will be fully mobilised to ensure the proper implementation of this order, with the aim of protecting migrants, who are often victims of exploitation by smuggling networks, and guaranteeing the safety of everyone on the coast.’
Thomas had claimed he would rally ‘thousands of British patriots’ for a special mission named after the D-Day operation of 1944, saying grandiosely that they would be arriving by ‘land, sea, and air’.
But by lunchtime on Saturday, he had only managed to post social media pictures of around a dozen men brandishing Union Jacks on a French beach, while claiming others had stopped at the border.
The deputy mayor of dinghy-departure hotspot Gravelines, near Calais, Alain Boonefaes, said: ‘These men have no right to come and try to enforce order in France.
‘They’re British, and they should maintain public order in their own country, not in France.
‘They have no right to come and intimidate and threaten anyone. They have no right to do this.’
