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A Jesuit priest and two Caritas volunteers have been holding a hunger strike in favor of migrants' rights for nearly a month inside a church in the French port city of Calais
By Pascal Charrier and Christophe Henning | France
Gaston Grare could hardly hold back his tears on Wednesday as he entered St. Peter's Church in the Northern French city of Calais, a major ferry port on the English Channel.
The psychologist, who volunteers at the Migrant Hostel in the city, went to check up on a Jesuit priest and two Caritas workers who are nearly a month into a hunger strike in solidarity with Calais' distraught migrant community.
"Don't go too far," Grare tells them.
The 72-year-old Father Philippe Demeestère nods understandingly.
"I don't want to die in this church," he says. "I want to get out on my own two feet."
Demeestère, who is chaplain of Secours Catholique (Caritas France), stands in the nave of the church where he had concelebrated Mass only a day earlier.
On Thursday, he and two Caritas volunteers began their 25th day without eating.
How far will they go?
"I keep all my freedom and I have other perspectives," Demeestère replies simply.
The French government has appointed senior civil servant Didier Leschi to negotiate with the priest and his two companions – Anaïs Vogel and Ludovic Holbein – in order to bring an end to their hunger strike.
But discussions have reached an impasse since the government has said it has no intention of stopping its routine dismantling of the make-shift migrant camps in the Calais area.
It says doing nothing would be tantamount to allowing a migrant "jungle" to be reconstituted, especially during the winter truce or amnesty.
The three hunger-strikers, however, have made halting the demolition of the camps their first demand.
One-by-one, they repeat these words: "I will continue".
"We advocate life, not death"
The two Caritas volunteers are even more extreme than their Jesuit chaplain.
"We advocate life, not death," emphasizes Ludovic Holbein.
"Maybe if we were on a drip it would help, but that's not why we're here," he says.
Anaïs Vogel, who is sitting next to him, admits that she feels "hyperfatigued".
"For the past few days, I have felt a deterioration," she confesses.
Meanwhile, Leschi will begin implementing other proposals that the three hunger-strikers say will not really solve anything.
One of those proposals is to offer accommodation outside Calais to the migrants who are still coming to the port city to try to cross the channel to England.
"We are told, 'either we evict or we let the jungle reconstitute itself', as if there was nothing between those two options," laments Holbein.
Like Demeestère and Vogel, he is urging the authorities to let the migrants "at least" breathe under a tent during the winter, "a time to let them think about their future", rather than harassing them and forcing them to move away.
"We are not opposed to permanent accommodation, but it must be offered here, in Calais," Holbein says.
The three hunger-strikers have the support of Caritas (Secours Catholique) and the Society of Jesus.
"The question of whether or not to continue the hunger strike is not for us to decide, it remains an individual choice," insists Nathanaël Caillaux, in charge of the Secours Catholique mission in the region.
"This action has at least put the spotlight back on Calais," he says.
François Boëdec, superior of the Western European Province of the Jesuits, agrees.
"To me, this is the most important result of their commitment. It reminds us all of the unbearable nature of the situation," he points out.
The local ordinary, Bishop Olivier Leborgne of Arras, has met with the hunger-strikers inside St. Peter's Church and has been supportive of them.
Still, he's "worried" about their health and wonders whether they should continue.
"The hunger strike has had some positive effects, even if minor, and I would be surprised if the government gives more than it has already granted," the bishop says.
"We need to move forward," he adds.
"But we will not move forward by endangering the health of the people on hunger strike more than is reasonable."
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