Gérald Darmanin was in Calais on November 28 to give an update on the Channel shipwreck tragedy. Speaking at a press conference, he claimed that some migrants have engaged in blackmail by threatening to kill their babies -- or by pushing "old people" into the sea -- if French police officers intervened to stop them in their attempt to cross the English Channel.

"In a picture that I saw published in the English newspapers, you see French policemen who see a boat leaving [...]." This reportedly lead some British politicians "to ask: 'But what are the French policemen doing?' What we do not see in this photo was that the migrants in the boat were using babies and threatening to throw them into water right beside an engine, if [the French police] came to question them [...]"

"As Minister of the Interior, I repeat, the order is not to intervene. We cannot endanger the lives of children and elderly people who are sometimes thrown into the sea. This is something that the French police have unfortunately had to observe for many years [...]"

Darmanin, critical of British migration policy, is under pressure to defend French police officers who are accused by London of passivity on the beaches around Calais.

His statements have angered aid associations present on the coast of northern France.

"It's pathetic, I'm incredibly shocked by his remarks," said Anna Richel, coordinator for the Utopia 56 association in Grande-Synthe, contacted by InfoMigrants. "He is trying to make migrants look like what? Like criminals? He is trying to denigrate them? It's crazy, and it's very serious."

'It's a shame'

After the death of 27 migrants at sea, many organizations point to the "obscenity" of the minister's remarks. "It's a disgrace," says Pierre Roques, one of the members of the Migrant Hostel in Calais. "It's a shameful that he is trying to defend himself like this. He accused the smugglers, and now he's looking for a new culprit, so he incriminates the migrants?"

The organizations helping migrants all agree that it is above all the "over-militarization" of the border, the policy of "no stopping points" and the daily dismantling of camps that push migrants to cross the Channel, taking all the risks.

"Imagine what terror they must be running from if they get to the point of holding a baby over the water. I'm not saying it's true, but I'm saying we have to ask ourselves the right questions," argues Marguerite Combes of Utopia 56 in Calais.

"We are talking about people in extreme precariousness, people who have lost all their financial means in multiple attempts to cross, people who have nothing left. It's too easy to shift the blame onto them," says Combes.

'They can't take it anymore'

Five years after the dismantling of the Calais "jungle", hundreds of migrants are still living rough in the cold there, faced with the prospect of daily evictions from their camps. During evictions, tents are almost always seized and lacerated, aid groups say, and the migrants' personal belongings often lost.

Read more: Victims of Channel drowning yet to be identified as families fear the worst

"Today, in Grande-Synthe, the camp where about 400 people live has no water point. You have to walk two kilometers to get any to drink," explains Richel. "It is currently 4 degrees, it has rained a lot in the last few days and it snowed yesterday. The conditions couldn't be worse," she continues. "The migrants can't take it anymore and this is why they are attempting the crossings at any cost."

In Calais, the situation is the same. Food distributions are becoming increasingly prohibited by official orders. "It's becoming difficult for migrants to get any access to food and water," says Combes. "The food distribution points are being moved further and further away from the camps so that the migrants can't eat where they live. And, crucially, they are not allowed to live where they can eat."