Aid groups say rise of far-right rhetoric in politics has fed into intimidation, vandalism and hate graffiti around migrant camps
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ot far from a camp in Dunkirk where hundreds of asylum seekers sleep, hoping to cross the Channel to the UK, are some chilling pieces of graffiti. There is a hangman’s noose with a figure dangling next to the word “migrant” and, close by, another daubing: a Jewish Star of David painted in black surrounded by red swastikas.
Utopia 56, a French group supporting migrants in northern France, posted the image on X on Christmas Day with the comment: “This is what comes from normalising the extreme right’s rhetoric, a visible, unapologetic, unabashed hatred.”
It is not known who was responsible for the graffiti. But one thing is clear: it comes after a period of growing activity on French soil by far-right British activists, some of whom have harassed and intimidated asylum seekers in the places where they sleep, or boasted of slashing dinghies to prevent crossings. And to many of those who work to support asylum seekers in northern France, that activity has been hothoused by the rightward shift of mainstream British politics.
