Spanish Civil war refugees flooded into France through the Pyrenees, if they could they came through on the Mediterranean side.... into Perpignan and lived rough on the beaches,notably Canet Plage. Their treatment by the French authorities was nothing short of despicable, but then the French have always been short on compassion. The number of refugees was minute compared to today's figures, but at the time the indigenous French population ( p...s poor and largely illiterate ) were only concerned with themselves . The vast majority on that side of the country hadn't hesrd of the arial bombing of Guernica by the German Condor Division,for example And if they had I doubt they would have had much sympathy with the Spanish Basques.
History lesson over, what I can't understand is why,in this high technology age with such easy access to social media, would-be refugees don't realise what they are letting themselves in for when they pay extortionate sums to trafficers to get them to Europe.
Surely they could buy airline tickets to get them straight to where they want to be and arrive semi- legitimately.... have to go through immigration checks just as they have to do when they arrive,exhausted, at Lesbos or somewher similar, and then face a further journey (on foot as some are proposing to do) to Germany.
I'm quite sure better brains than me on GN will be able provide the answer, but having seen old ladies struggling through barbed wire I really want to know why the hell they are putting themselves through it. If France were to crumble into complete anarchy, I'm afraid at my age I'd just keep my head down (or tucked in like a tortoise ) and stay put. Forty years ago I would have fought rather than fled.