France is set to vote on scrapping a law that makes it a crime to help refugees sneak into Britain.The drive to abolish rules that offering 'food, shelter and assistance' to illegal immigrants is being spearheaded by socialist party leader Martine Aubrey - the same politician who opened the notorious Sangatte hostel 12 years ago.
The law - article L622-1 of the French penal code - is used by police in Calais to prosecute anyone helping British-bound refugees to remain in the northern port by giving them food, money or shelter.
Those convicted face up to five years in prison and a £25,000 fine. But right-wing lawmakers insist scrapping the rules would make it easier for the estimated 2,000 refugees in Calais to remain there - and create an incentive for many more to arrive.
Aubry, daughter of notorious former EU Commission president Jacques Delors, said: 'This law punishes kindness and makes people live in fear.
'We have drafted legislation aimed at removing the rules so people can offer basic free aid to illegal immigrants whose lives could be in danger without it.'
She also defended opening the Sangatte refugee camp when she was social affairs minister in 1997, adding: 'I opened Sangatte as a humanitarian gesture because people were suffering.'
The camp acted as a stepping stone for 60,000 migrants to sneak into Britain before it was bulldozed in 2002.
But immigration minister Eric Besson, who will be rallying MPs to vote next Tuesday to keep the law, said: 'No one has ever been prosecuted for giving food or shelter to an illegal immigrant.
'It is in place to catch the people smugglers who charge refugees thousands or euros to help them sneak aboard lorries and ferries to Britain.'
The debate over the law was ignited by the release of the recent film Welcome about a Calais swimming instructor prosecuted for teaching a refugee to swim across the Channel to Britain.
The film's director Phipppe Loiret likened the law to 'having a Jew hidden in your cellar' during Nazi Germany - remarks which Mr Besson branded 'intolerable'.
There are currently around 2,000 mainly Iraqi, Afghan, Somali and Kurdish refugees living rough in Calais. Many make daily attempts to sneak aboard ferries, lorries and Channel Tunnel trains to Britain. continues here
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