French woman risks prison over helping refugee Iranian lover: I would give my life for him

July 6, 2017

Love conquers hatred! The story of a French woman shows how even right wing anti-immigrant activists are transformed into humanitarians when they personally see the plight of other humans and when they fall in love. According to Telegraph , A Frenchwoman who helped her Iranian boyfriend sneak into Britain by boat was found guilty Tuesday of illegally assisting migrants but spared punishment after arguing she acted out of love a court in France found Béatrice Huret, the widow of a deceased border patrol officer, guilty of helping Mokhtar, her Iranian refugee lover slip out of France to Britain. The court Béatrice, a former supporter of France’s anti-immigration National Front, met Mokhtar while volunteering at the since-demolished migrant camp in Calais and later helped him slip out of France under cover of night on a rickety boat cross the English Channel to Britain.

The 44-year-old was tried alongside three others accused of helping migrants make their way across the Channel – two of them French and one Iranian.

Arriving at the courthouse in the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Huret said she hoped the trial would help others “understand what I did and why I did it” and said she took full responsibility for her actions. “I am prepared to give up my life for him. The only thing that would bother me is that I would no longer be able to see Mokhtar if I’m in jail,” Huret said.

Huret’s life was transformed in February 2015 when she gave a lift to a young Sudanese migrant travelling to the makeshift camp where thousands of people were living in tents and shacks.

“It was a shock to see all these people wading around in the mud,” said Huret. She began volunteering at the camp and a year later met the 37-year-old Mokhtar, who was among a group of Iranians who sewed their mouths shut in protest over the demolition of part of the camp in March 2016.

“It was love at first sight,” Huret said in an interview earlier this month.

After a failed bid by Mokhtar to hide in the back of a truck, she helped him acquire a small boat and towed it to a beach from where he and two other Iranians crossed to England on 11 June 11 2016. Mokhtar, who is living in Sheffield, has since been granted asylum.

Huret went on to write a book about their romance, Calais Mon Amour, for which several film-makers are vying to acquire the rights.

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