Europe's illegals trapped in Catch-22

And French citizens who assist the refugees also now face prosecution. Charles Frammezelle, who sheltered 21 Afghans in his small apartment, has been charged with "aiding irregular residence in an organized group" - a crime normally attributed to people-smugglers that carries a five-year jail penalty.

"I was doing my social duty," Mr. Frammezelle says. "I couldn't leave them outside in the cold."

When they are arrested, the refugees are given the opportunity to apply for asylum in France, but hardly any do so. "Nobody loves or respects a country that does not respect you," says one dreadlocked Sudanese who identifies himself only as "a black homeless in Europe," as he sits in the dirt behind the Portakabin parked on a piece of wasteland where La Belle Etoile hands out lunch.

If the refugee comes from a country to which France will not send people back against their will, such as Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, the police take him to one of the shelters dotted round France, which he is free to leave when he likes.

ALMOST all of those taken away from Calais return here, drawn by the prospect of making it to England, where many refugees have family and a less regulated economy makes it simpler to work illegally.

Refugees also believe they will meet with more generous treatment from the British authorities if they seek asylum there. They are not deterred by British Home Office leaflets, printed in English, French, Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Pashto, and distributed here with the free lunch, that begin bluntly: "You are warned - things in the UK have changed" and explain how recent legislation has abolished generous subsidies and the right to work for asylum seekers.

If an arrested refugee comes from a country France regards as safe - such as Sudan and most other African nations - and doesn't ask for asylum here, he can be sent back home - and Sarkozy says that in the future he will be. The minister recently ordered local authorities to double the number of illegal immigrants that they expel each year, insisting that "the credibility of any public policy on immigration depends on effective execution of repatriation decisions."

The problem of where to send would-be refugees is one of the questions holding up an EU-wide asylum policy, as governments argue about which countries can be regarded as "safe."

The overall thrust of the new EU directive, human rights groups worry, is to "shift the burden from EU member states to countries further afield," as UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said in a letter last week to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

At the same time, so many EU governments are demanding exceptions and derogations from what is meant to be a common asylum policy that the law is becoming "a collection of national practices, often bad ones," says UNHCR spokesman Diederik Kramers.

Meanwhile, the refugees in Calais are caught on the horns of the French authorities' dilemma - wanting them to leave, but stopping them from going to the only place they are interested in. "They just want to get to the other side of the Channel, and we do our best to stop them because of our international obligations" to Britain, says Michel Heuzé, the government's top representative in Calais. "It seems surreal."

"We don't understand what they are doing," adds Davood, one of Ali's friends on the burned-out boat. "On the one hand they tell us to leave France, and on the other they don't let us. They kick us with their feet, but they hold us back with their hands."

Page: 1 | 2