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French Honorary Diplomat Suspended over Selling Boats to Migrants

12 September 2015

By James

A French honorary diplomat in Turkey has been suspended after it was revealed that she sold boats to migrants hoping to cross to the Greek islands.

Francoise Olcay was secretly filmed by France 2 TV selling small boats and life-jackets from the port of Bodrum, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

UN figures say that over 120,000 migrants had reached Greece by sea from January to July 2015, and while Ms Olcay is not directly part of the French diplomatic corps, the incident will be a major embarrassment to that country’s foreign ministry. She told a reporter she was selling the boats with ‘full knowledge’ that it could lead to disaster.

Turkish authorities say that, although Bodrum forms a major part of the regular route for migrants to Greece by sea and then north to Austria and Germany, the number of departures from the port have reduced slightly following increased police patrols. The tightening of the coastal border has come after after the death last week of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, whose body washed up on the beach at Bodrum.

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