For the last few years, a migrant tent camp has been present along a canal in the Normandy town of Ouistreham, not far from the port city of Caen. Now, a judge at the city’s administrative court has ruled that authorities in Ouistreham need to provide the migrants present there, people occupying several dozen tents, with access to drinking water and washing facilities.

The Conseil d’Etat in Caen made the ruling on July 3, after a case was brought in May by a collective of five different groups working with migrants and defending their rights. The groups, Vents Contraires, l’association Solidarités international, la Cimade, l’association CitoyenNES en Lutte-Ouistreham and the Collectif d’aide aux migrants de Ouistreham (CAMO), brought their action arguing that the camp had been established in the area for the last few years and did not constitute an itinerant camp.

The groups said that the running water and washing facilities in the area were at least one to two kilometers away from the camp site and were too far for migrants to be able to use easily. Migrants, with the help of the migrant rights groups, asked the judge to order the authorities to install these facilities within 48 hours.

Appeal fails

The authorities on the other hand, appealed to the court in June, saying that there was no urgency to install any facilities since the camp only hosted between ten and 15 people and was only temporary, so could not be considered established. The authorities also argued that there were existing facilities in the area, including nine toilets, two drinking water taps and public showers on the beach that could reasonably be considered to cover the needs of these people, reported the news portal Ouest France.

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The court decided that, contrary to what the local authorities and the ministry of the interior had said in court, the camp had been established for at least three years, and so could "constitute a sort of home, and not just a place that people passed through in a day," reported Ouest France.

The court also found that the people in the camp didn’t have access to anything close and that the washing facilities and showers listed by the authorities were between one and 2.5 kilometers away from their camp and were therefore "not sufficient to respond to their elemental needs, and could present risks for migrant health if they were forced to continue." The court also noted that if the migrants were using the water in the canal near to their camp, this could also be problematic for the health of all those concerned.

'Inhumane and degrading treatment'

The court went on to rule that by leaving the migrants resident there without proper access to drinking water and washing facilities was to expose the migrants to "inhumane and degrading treatment, and was illegal and an infringement of their human rights," reports Ouest France.

According to the news portal Actu.fr, the judge also added that if the migrants were not able to wash in proximity to their living space, they could suffer from "dermatological pathologies, digestive tract diseases and harbor infections linked to poor hygiene."

The court also noted the risk to public health and said that the authorities needed to act urgently. The court concluded that the authorities needed to talk to the associations and the migrants to work out exactly how many water points and washing facilities were needed and where they should be situated.

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Johanès Si Mohand, president of one of the associations that helped bring the case Vents Contraires told the French state broadcaster France 3 "I am so pleased about the news [of the judge’s decision]. It’s a very important decision because it demonstrates that people have a right to access to clean water."

Access to water is 'a right for all'

Mohand added that it didn’t matter whether or not there were 20 people in the camp or 200, the fact that the judge had confirmed that access to water is a right for all was the most important result of the case.

According to France 3, the five associations have been fighting to get water installed in the area since 2018. The majority of the migrants living at the camp come from Sudan, the broadcaster said. Many of those in the camp hope to reach the UK and have pitched their camp not far from the ferry terminals traveling from Ouistreham / Caen to Portsmouth.

France 3 added that the authorities had created a building site to install the water in early June after the administrative court in Caen had already demanded it of them on June 2, but despite starting the building works, the authorities had also taken their claim to appeal.

France 3 contacted the mayor of Ouistreham, Romain Bail, who replied that he had "no comment" to make on the issue. In addition to not commenting, Bail told another French news portal France Bleu that he had "other things to do."