Striking ferry workers clash with police, residents grumble about drunken Britons, and businessmen still await a payoff from the tunnel that was to bring a pot of gold.
It wasn't supposed to be this way when the "Chunnel" between England and France was inaugurated in May by Queen Elizabeth II and President Francois Mitterrand, who called it "a new chance for the region."A fitting symbol of Europe's halting steps toward unification, the 32-mile, $16 billion Eurotunnel under the English Channel has brought more grief than joy to this region.
"There was no positive tunnel effect - just problems," said Gerard Foly, owner of Le Plaisance bar in this port city of 150,000 people where unemployment is an estimated 20 percent.
"For a merchant, it doesn't bring anything," said Marie-Sylvie Le Grand, owner of a flower shop in Coquelles, near the sprawling, 1,400-acre Eurotunnel terminal that will open its own mall of 150 shops, restaurants and theaters later this year.
Over the past three years, "Boulogne has gone from France's largest ferry port to zilch," costing the city about 3,500 jobs, said Gerard Barron, a British lawyer and consul representative in Boulogne.
Most of the 13,000 workers who built the Chunnel are now out of a job.
So far, the Eurotunnel is cutting into Paris-London air traffic and ferry freight service, but management gives no figures on passengers.
Meanwhile, ferry companies are engaging in a cutthroat price war to preserve market share. One ferry company has begun hiring Poles at low wages, sparking violent protests by French sailors.
Compared with the tunnel's minimum $78 round-trip fare for a car crossing the channel, ferries are charging as little as $32.
As a result, Britons are packing onto the ferries in record numbers to take advantage of lower French alcohol taxes and enjoy the countryside. But the ferry service is now concentrating on Calais - virtually wiping out ferry operations in Boulogne.
"I don't like England. I don't like the English," said Foly, the bar owner. "They're drunk, they take over, they come en masse and jostle everybody.
"In France they know they can come here, break everything and be released 24 hours later," he said.