Sangatte (; ) is a commune in the

Pas-de-Calais The Pas-de-Calais (, ' strait of Calais'; ; ) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments of France, with 890, and is the ...

department on the northern coast of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

on the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

. The name is of Flemish origin, meaning hole or gap in the sand.

Engineering

Sangatte is the location for the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

's French cooling station, its British counterpart being at Samphire Hoe. In addition, it is the French end-point for the HVDC Cross-Channel, the connection between the UK and French electricity grids.

History

First underwater telegraph

Sangatte was the landing point of the world's first operational underwater

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

cable, laid across the Channel by the Submarine Telegraph Company in 1851 between South Foreland and Sangatte.

Pioneering cross-Channel flight

'Blériot-Plage' is named to commemorate Louis Blériot who, on 25 July 1909, was the first person to fly across the

. He flew from the beach at Sangatte to the White Cliffs of Dover, to claim the prize offered by the Daily Mail. The crossing took 37 minutes in his aeroplane, Blériot XI, built in collaboration with Raymond Saulnier. It was powered by a 3-cylinder engine. At the western end of the beach, a statue of the French aviator Hubert Latham overlooks the sea. Latham was another pioneering cross-channel pilot whose earlier attempt on 19 July had failed.''Flight'' Magazine 30 March 1951 p.365: ''Portrait of a Pioneer'' by Colin Boyle
/ref>

Spitfire

Sangatte is also the landing location of Supermarine Spitfire Mark 1a N3200 of No. 19 Squadron RAF, which was forced to land at the beach after receiving damage to its radiator from shots fired by a

Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a monoplane fighter aircraft that was designed and initially produced by the Nazi Germany, German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt#History, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW). Together with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the ...

of JG 2 during

Operation Dynamo Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

on 26 May 1940, having shot down a

Junkers Ju 87 The Junkers Ju 87, popularly known as the "Stuka", is a German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, it first flew in 1935. The Ju 87 made its combat debut in 1937 with the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion during the ...

shortly beforehand to protect the evacuating soldiers at

Dunkirk Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...

. The plane was recovered from the sand at Sangatte in 1986, and restoration work commenced in 2000, which continued until 2014 when works completed, the aircraft having been repaired to a fully airworthy state.

Refugee camp

Sangatte was the location of a

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

set up by the French Red Cross in 1999 as a result of an influx of migrants attempting to travel to the United Kingdom. They were mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo. Under pressure from the UK government, Nicolas Sarkozy (then Minister of the Interior), ordered its closure in 2002. There were riots in 2001 and 2002, the year the camp closed.

Population

Politics

Mayor List

Twin towns

* Sandgate, Kent, England, UK.

In popular culture

In the

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

show '' Top Gear'', the three presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May crossed the Channel in an amphibious Nissan Navara and instead of finishing at

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

after leaving

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

, they ended up along the coast in Sangatte.

Personalities

* The airmen Hubert Latham and Louis Blériot. * Fabrice Bourré (born in 1962), French footballer, was born in Blériot-Plage.

References

External links

(In French language)
Sangatte sur le site de la Côte d'Opale
{{Authority control Communes of Pas-de-Calais Calais migrant crisis (1999–present) Pale of Calais Populated coastal places in France