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Decathlon stops canoe sales in northern France to cut migrant crossings

Sports equipment retailer Decathlon will no longer sell canoes in the north of France to prevent migrants using them in a bid to cross the Channel to England.

Published: 17 November 2021 08:52 CET
A dinghy belonging to the French Maritime Affairs department heads for shore, carrying several migrants who had tried to cross the Channel to England
Photo: Bernard Barron / AFP

“The purchase of canoes will no longer be possible” in Decathlon stores in Calais and Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk, “given the current context,” the retailer told AFP, confirming local media reports.

The items sold from the stores were not being used for their original sporting purpose, but “could be used to cross the Channel,” it said. In such cases, “people’s lives would be endangered,” the retailer argued.

The stores themselves had decided to stop selling the canoes and management had approved the decision, Decathlon said.

The canoes will continue to be available for online purchase and in other stores. Other safety equipment, such as life-jackets and thermal protection will also still be sold in the Calais and Grande-Synthe stores.

READ ALSO What the French are doing to stop migrant crossings

ROn Friday, three migrants were reported missing after trying to cross the Channel to Britain in canoes, as the number of crossings soars.

Two canoes were found adrift off Calais on Thursday and two people were fished out of the water.

Earlier on Tuesday, French police cleared a major migrant camp that was home to around a thousand people hoping to reach Britain. Tensions are high between London and Paris over English Channel crossings.

A record number of migrants crossed the Channel in small boats last Thursday – 1,185 according to British figures – which the British government described as “unacceptable”.

READ ALSO: ‘The maximum’: What France is doing to prevent migrant crossings to UK

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin spoke to his British counterpart Priti Patel on Monday, but only after giving a blunt interview in which he said Britain should “stop using us as a punch-bag in their domestic politics“.

The French authorities said they carried out 10 separate operations Tuesday in which they rescued 272 migrants who were trying to cross the Channel to England aboard makeshift boats, some of them in difficulty.

Maritime officials said they were taken to the ports of Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne-sur-Mer where they were looked after by the border police and firefighters.

Maritime Prefect Philippe Dutrieux said around 15,400 migrants have tried to make the dangerous Channel crossing between January 1 and August 31, with some 3,500 of them rescued from boats in distress and brought to French shores.

In 2020, some 9,500 people crossed the Channel or tried to do so, compared to 2,300 in 2019 and 600 in 2018.

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CRIME

French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

A 14-year-old girl has died of a heart attack in eastern France after her school locked down to protect itself from a knife attacker who lightly wounded two other girls, an official said on Friday.

Published: 20 April 2024 08:58 CEST
French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

The teenager “was rescued by teachers who were very fast to call the fire department. She died at the end of the afternoon,” education official Olivier Faron said.

The girl’s middle school in the village of Souffelweyersheim closed its doors on Thursday afternoon after a man stabbed two other girls aged 7 and 11 outside a nearby primary facility.

“Sadly this pupil underwent an episode of very high stress that led to a heart attack,” Faron said.

A mother outside the middle school on Friday morning said her son in first year of secondary had also been scared during the lockdown the previous day.

“Whereas in the primary school they made it more like a game, perhaps here it was a little too direct,” Deborah Wendling said.

“He thought there was an armed person in the school. They could hear doors slamming, but in fact it was just other classrooms locking down.”

Faron defended the teachers.

READ ALSO: Schoolgirl threatens teacher with knife as tensions rise in French schools

“There is no perfect solution,” he said.

But “we will analyse in depth what happened. If there are lessons to be taken from this, we will take them.”

The two girls hurt in the attack were discharged from hospital on Thursday evening with only light wounds.

Police have arrested the 30-year-old assailant, and a probe has been opened into “attempted murder of minors”, the prosecutor’s office said.

It was not immediately clear what had motivated him, but it did not appear to be “a terrorist act”, it said.

He was “psychiatrically fragile” and appeared to have stopped his medication.

The incident follows a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Thursday announced measures to crack down on teenage violence in and around schools.

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