[ti:French Port Watches Britain’s Debate on EU Membership] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]"The last English city of France" are the words Francois Lavallee uses [00:07.76]to describe the French port of Calais. [00:13.04]Lavallee is president of the Chamber of Commerce [00:17.24]for the Hauts-de-France area of northern France, of which Calais is a part. [00:25.40]He adds that the city has "a lot of human and business exchange" with Britain. [00:31.88]"It's in our blood." [00:35.08]The port sits across the English Channel from Britain. [00:39.36]British flags and public houses, called pubs, [00:44.07]welcome ferryboats and their passengers to Calais. [00:49.72]People also arrive in the city on the Channel Tunnel, [00:53.90]which links southern England with northern France. [00:59.12]But today, Calais is preparing for Britain's possible withdrawal [01:04.91]from the European Union, a move known as Brexit. [01:09.64]Such a move would affect the city's long-standing economic ties with the country. [01:17.72]Britain is supposed to leave the EU at the end of October [01:22.58]-- with or without a new agreement in place between the two sides. [01:29.16]In Calais and other northern industrial ports, [01:33.09]the French government has added hundreds of new customs officers. [01:38.32]France also is testing a new electronic customs system. [01:44.80]Calais has invested a lot of money in new infrastructure to help limit delays [01:51.76]for the thousands of trucks that pass through each day with goods. [01:57.07]Cross-channel trade for the Hauts-de-France region [02:01.32]amounted to more than $7 billion last year. [02:06.02]"Britain is the third biggest market for the north of France," [02:10.50]after Belgium and Germany, noted Lavallee. [02:14.84]"If there are problems with the British market, there may be bad consequences." [02:22.80]A recent Chamber of Commerce report attempted to identify [02:27.63]possible winners and losers in a no-deal Brexit. [02:32.19]Local tourism businesses, fisheries and port traffic may suffer, it said. [02:40.92]Some British-based companies might choose to move across the Channel, however. [02:47.26]This could provide a much-needed economic boost for the region, [02:52.68]which is one of France's poorest. [02:57.52]The family-owned Carpentier trucking company [03:01.20]is one of many Calais businesses making Brexit preparations. [03:06.76]Transporting goods to and from Britain makes up 20 percent of its business. [03:14.32]Carpentier is carrying out its own tests to see if customs agents are truly prepared. [03:22.96]"Whether it's a hard or soft Brexit, we'll still keep transporting to Britain," [03:29.32]said the company's transport director Arnaud Dequidt. [03:34.20]"We can't do without Britain, so we'll adapt." [03:39.84]Taxi driver Hughes Vanpeene dreams of a positive side to Brexit. [03:46.60]Britons once came in large numbers to Calais, [03:50.32]thanks to a duty-free zone that ended in the 1990s. [03:55.97]Even with the city's welcoming flags and pubs, their numbers have since shrunk. [04:04.04]"...We think that with Brexit, duty-free will come back, [04:07.67]and we'll again have people in Calais buying alcohol and cigarettes," Vanpeene said. [04:15.56]Lavallee see things differently. [04:18.55]"For us, it's very difficult to understand Brexit," he said. [04:24.33]"For us, it's a big mistake. We hope England will change her position on Brexit." [04:31.44]"But," he adds, "If Brexit arrives, we will try capturing profits for the region." [04:38.88]I'm Ashley Thompson. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM