Napoleon Bonaparte had set up an army of officers on the Opal Coast in northern France to capture England. Almost no trace remains of this military camp that was set up between Le Portel and Wimereux, from 1803 to 1805. In Wimereux, only the obelisk erected in tribute to the soldiers of the Empire remains.

England was not conquered, and Wimereux became a wealthy seaside resort. The charm of the colorful villas from the early 20^th century, which survived the bombings of the Second World War, are a delight for French and Belgian tourists. In summer, the town's population swells from 8,000 to 25,000. On one sunny Saturday in September, people were strolling along the seawall, children were playing at low tide and dogs were romping on the beach.

For some time now, during the less busy hours, a different kind of visitor has been arriving in this region on the Opal Coast. They, too, want to reach England, whose chalky cliffs can be seen on a clear day. They come from Syria, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and the Horn of Africa, fleeing war, persecution and misery. And their ships are rafts. Over the past three years, more and more migrant boats have been setting sail from the south of Pas-de-Calais, whereas previously, departures were concentrated around Dunkirk and Calais further north.

Front row seats

On the night of September 14-15, a group of around 50 people set off from Ambleteuse – a village near Wimereux – to cross the English Channel. Before long, their overloaded dinghy wrecked on the rocks. Eight men died. On September 3, it was from the wide beach of the Slack dunes, in the commune of Wimereux, that a group of mostly Eritreans had set sail shortly before 8 am. The dinghy capsized in the late morning. Twelve people drowned, most of them women. Two bodies were not recovered. The year 2024 is already the deadliest since the emergence, in 2018, of crossings in small boats, these rafts of less than 10 meters on which up to 60 or even 80 people are crammed.

As strollers arrived one by one on the Wimereux seawall on that late September morning, a municipal dump truck hurried to pick up the belongings left behind by departing migrants at dawn, as if to erase all trace of them. The locals know all about these stories and tragedies.

"We've got a front-row seat," said 28-year-old Pierre-Louis Couvelard, who has been running the area's first surf school for three years. On April 23, he remembers having to cancel a class after several people suffocated to death in a raft, including a 7-year-old girl from Iraq. "It was right in front of the school. We weren't going to go past the paramedics and the white sheets," said Couvelard, whose "biggest fear is finding a body floating." "These people are going to the slaughterhouse," he said, "often without life jackets."

You have 60.71% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.