Transport associations in Britain have called on the French government to take “urgent action” to protect drivers from migrants after a man was killed Tuesday morning on the A16 motorway near Calais.
Three trucks were forced to suddenly brake so as to avoid tree trunks dragged into the road by a group of migrants in a bid to slow traffic and break into vehicles bound for Britain.
Unable to stop in time, a van driver died when his vehicle crashed into one of the trucks halted by the makeshift barricade and burst into flames.
Found in one of the trucks following the accident, nine Eritreans were arrested on suspicion of having placed tree trunks on the road.
The Freight Transport Association (FTA) and Road Haulage Association (RHA) said the deadly collision fulfilled their predictions that migrants’ actions would result in driver fatalities.
RHA chief Richard Burnett said security forces in Calais “cannot cope” with the behaviour of migrants, and called on French President Emmanuel Macron to send soldiers to protect drivers.
“The lives of innocent people, who want no more than to be able to go about their daily business in safety, are being put at risk by those whose only aim in life is to reach the UK,” said the transport association boss, according to logistics industry news site The Loadstar.
“They don’t care about anyone but themselves and as a result a life has been lost,” he said.
“President Macron must get a grip of this situation and we urge him to deploy the French military to provide safe passage for the thousands of UK-bound hauliers that use this route every day.”
A spokesman for the FTA said his organisation “warned two years ago that [migrants’] actions would lead to a death”, declaring it “now imperative” that the French government takes action.
Describing the death as “wholly preventable”, FTA European Union (EU) affairs manager Chris Yarsley said authorities in Calais risk more fatalities unless they “do more to detain migrants and move them away from the area”.
Breitbart London reported in May how transport associations had renewed calls for French authorities to do more to protect drivers after the return of migrants to the northern French town since the dismantling of the “Jungle” camp saw violence in Calais begin to escalate once more.
Breitbart London has often reported on the violent lengths to which migrants in Calais have been willing to stoop to when trying to slow lorries so they can be boarded for Britain. In one case, a driver was nearly killed when a wooden stake was hurled through his cab window as his truck was “mobbed”.
In August last year, the FTA warned it is only a matter of time before a driver is killed after a night of violence saw lorries firebombed and a freight driver threatened by a chainsaw-wielding illegal immigrant.
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