Mysterious armed groups are on the prowl

Mysterious armed groups are on the prowl, targeting migrants in night attacks in
Calais and elsewhere in northern France, sowing fear among the displaced travelers living in squalid slums and deepening concerns the city is becoming a tinderbox of anti-migrant, anti-Muslim rage that's fueling a budding nationalist movement.

French riot police officers patrol in the migrant camp in Calais, north of France. Mysterious armed groups are on the prowl, targeting migrants in night attacks in Calais and other migrant haunts in northern France, sowing fear among the displaced travelers living in squalid slums in hopes of sneaking into Britain but also deepening concerns Calais is becoming a tinderbox fueled with anti-migrant rage and a breeding ground for nationalists.

After months of what appear to be organized attacks, police made their first arrests Thursday, taking seven men armed with iron bars and extendable batons into custody for a suspected attack on five Iraqi Kurds at Loon-Plage, a port town between Calais and nearby Dunkirk. The seven faced charges of violence in a group and forming a group to commit violence, said Dunkirk prosecutor Eric Fouard. Some of the men, aged 24-47, said they sympathized with extreme-right movements in Calais identified as xenophobic, he said.
"The ideas they peddle are that there are too many migrants in France," Fouard said by telephone, noting that one of the seven was from Brittany and another from the Paris region.

The head of a legal center set up for the refugees in the makeshift Calais camp alleged on Friday that those living there are regularly subject to police violence, as well. Marianne Humbersot told reporters she was filing 13 complaints — five for violence by militia and eight at the hands of police.