the only real difference

Check out Yemen
Syria
Little children shot by snipers in the street.

OK, I looked it up for myself and found this:

France has a long tradition of offering asylum to foreign refugees, and the right of asylum has constitutional value under French law. French asylum law is heavily based on international
and European law, but is largely codified in the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile (CESEDA, Code of Entry and Residence of Foreigners and of the Right of Asylum).

There are two types of asylum protection in France: refugee protection and subsidiary protection. Asylum essentially rests on the serious possibility that the asylum seeker could be the victim of persecution or harm in his/her country of origin. Asylum may be denied or revoked for individuals who have committed crimes or whose presence would be a threat to society or national security.

Source is Library of Congress Law

Most of us could never imagine the terrible circumstances that have bought these people to Calais - how would we cope if such things happened to us? It's beyond sad.

This young man may have fled horrors in his home country and I don't know why he did not feel safe in France.
However, if he was in fact 28 and not 16 as reported, then what he did have was some choice and the ability to decide for himself what to do to try to reach safety although this ended in tragedy.

Babies and children do not have any choice. That is truly heartbreaking.
Please, if you can, donate to a charity of your choice to help them.

Urmstongran I think it has been explained many, many times why some asylum seekers are not safe in France.

Why wasn’t he safe in France? It seems a fine country.

Unfortunately the OP chose to believe comments she’d heard about in the gutter press without waiting/checking elsewhere and has now ended up with egg on her face. Source, check, source and check.....

They were comments by Daily Mail readers which were screen shot and published on Twitter and FB - not hearsay. Even if they were in the minority- they were very real - not hearsay.

We don't know why he was turned down - but it is a fact that he was not safe in France, and that he had little choice but to try and reach what he considered 'safer' - after leaving home and living in terrible conditions since 2014.

There are some not very nice posts on GN too!

No.
They are comments by people online which are unacceptable but then, anyone can post anything online can't they.

Some people really try to wriggle out of accepting the truth, don't they...

Do you mean the OP?

It's irrelevant why France turned him down

My apologies for annoying you with my question MaizieD, I was just wondering why France would turn down any application for asylum, I wasn't intending to infer that he wasn't eligible to apply elsewhere.

Hearsay is never acceptable in court or when trying to make a serious point.

It wasn't hearsay. I didn't read the DM either but I saw some of the comments as they were screenshotted and published on twitter. they weren't very nice...

Some people really try to wriggle out of accepting the truth, don't they...

I am very upset about babies and children losing their lives in Syria and the Yemen.
Poor little loves, they have no chance.

I feel sorry for a young man who has lost his life in this way but he knew what he was doing, unlike the mites I see on my FB page each day.

Urmstongran

And why did he pretend to be 16 y?
Actually photographs of him show he looked nothing like a mid-teen.

I don't think he did pretend to be 16. That's what the guy who was in the boat with him told the authorities.

It's irrelevant why France turned him down. He was still entitled to try for asylum in the UK.

And why did he pretend to be 16 y?
Actually photographs of him show he looked nothing like a mid-teen.

I was just going to ask the same question Chewbacca.
❓

I wonder why his claim for asylum in France was denied?

I do not read the Daily Mail - and read some of the disgusting comments published on line - these comments were real- so I shall not apologise for being disgusted by them

But you must have done?

Hearsay is never acceptable in court or when trying to make a serious point.

I do not read the Daily Mail - and read some of the disgusting comments published on line - these comments were real- so I shall not apologise for being disgusted by them

So, he was a bit older - does it make any difference. He left his war torn country in 2014 - when he was still a teenager- and has tried to survive best he could for the past 6 years.

And no, he was not safe in France:

''Hamdallah, who was also known as Wajdi, is understood to have had his claim for asylum in France refused recently, and decided to risk the dangerous journey across the strait of Dover for a better life than the “horror” he used to live in, said sources including family members.''

According to the lunchtime news on tv, the poor chap who drowned was actually 28 and not 16.I would think the man with him is a similar age too.
Any drowning is awful of course.

Thank you MaizieD but it does not detract from the fact that criminal gangs are making a fortune out of human misery.

Authorities probably know who they are, the sellers of the boats/dinghies know who they are but they are not prosecuting them so the continued trafficking of humans will be the new normal route for migration into the country of choice, wherever that may be.

Here it all is again, just to emphasise the point:

Dan Sohege
Human rights advocate, international refugee law specialist, immigration economist,

An asylum seeker is entitled to seek asylum, without penalties as to manner of entry, specifically due to the circumstances necessitating their flight from persecution. This is a matter of international rather than domestic law, not EU specifically as alluded to later on,

Safety, as understood through case law, is subjective. Now France may be considered safe for you and I, however, as evidenced by reports of police brutality and its being found guilty of breaching refugee rights by ECHR, among other things, it may not be for asylum seekers.
This hasn't stopped 150 thousand plus individuals applying for asylum there, however, the multiple factors involved in determining an individual feeling of safety have meant that a small fraction, 4,300 roughly, have felt unsafe enough as to make a dangerous channel crossing
As an aside, the same can be said throughout the EU, for example Germany has approximately 166+thousand applications, yet people may not feel safe there due to the 1,600 record attacks against asylum seekers last year.
The Dublin III Regulations, cover a member state's responsibilities. They are not the governing instrument regarding asylum seekers however, which is the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Neither these regulations, nor the convention, nor any refugee law instrument by the way state that an asylum seeker has to seek asylum in any specific country. Leaving the EU does not remove the UK's obligations under international law
Leaving Dublin III Regulations all but guarantees it becomes harder for UK to send asylum seekers back to France, Particularly case as France routinely deports them to Libya, which is an active conflict zone, and thereby risks breaching non-refoulement
Non-refoulement is not a specifically refugee law focused tool. It is covered by a number of human rights instruments and means you cannot deport someone to an unsafe country, or a third country where they may then subsequently be deported to an unsafe country

Use of the phrase "economic migrants". The only way to demonstrate that someone is not a "genuine asylum seeker" is by processing their application. A failure to do so is also a breach of international, not EU, law.

Now, it is is also worth mentioning that while the channel is governed by international maritime law it is not illegal to cross it, It is, however, illegal for the navy to violate French waters or for a vessel to fail to render assistance to those in need on the seas.

Again, this has nothing to do with the EU and is a matter of international law which the UK will still be subject to upon the ending of the transition period. As a sovereign nation the UK is at liberty to remove itself from these treaties though

I would argue that anyone who had the "country's best interests at heart" would not suggest that making it a pariah state and diminishing its influence in the international community, which this would undoubtedly do, was the way to go about this.

Referring to a letter the writer was responding to. I'd echo his last sentence in respect of some posters on here...

From start to finish this letter is full of inaccuracies and misconceptions. I would suggest that in the genuine interests of the country it would be best for a serving MP to learn at least a basic level about the laws governing it before spouting tripe.

These unfortunate and desperate young men are paying criminal gangs to enter the UK illegally, therefore on their arrival they become illegal immigrants until such time they claim political asylum and then they have to wait for their cases to be heard.

Until then they are housed, clothed, fed and given an allowance. The accommodation varies according to which newspaper you read. If they are under eighteen they are often housed with families and attend college.

MaizieD despite you explaining on another thread that these unfortunate people are not illegal immigrants, some posters refuse to believe it. And some still question why these people don't stay in France, which has also been explained on threads they contributed to. I despair.

Eloethan also France Germany and Belgium.....their citizens don’t welcome migrants either, especially illegal ones.
It’s not just our problem, it’s true, but the UK is the magnet.