Briton escapes draft into Foreign Legion

The young Briton, seized at the Channel Tunnel terminal at Folkestone by French immigration officers investigating national service dodging, was released yesterday afternoon.

Henry Tuson was arrested on Tuesday evening and detained at the La Citadelle barracks in Lille, home of the 43rd Infantry Regiment, until a medical deemed him unfit to complete his military service. At the time of his detention he had just 15 pence in his pocket.

According to a French embassy spokesman he was released just after 3pm yesterday.

The 22-year-old technical translator, who works for Eurotunnel, was born in Dunkirk but moved to Britain when only three months old. He lives at present in Herne Bay, Kent and has a British passport as well as dual nationality.

French officials had argued that Mr Tuson's exemption papers, which should have been filed to them when he was 17, had never arrived. But the manner of Mr Tuson's arrest prompted outrage from his parents, John and Brigitte, and from the local MP, Roger Gale, who represents the Thanet North constituency.

Mr Gale described the act as "kidnapping" and called for changes to the Channel Tunnel Treaty of 1987 which allowed French officers to detain Mr Tuson in Folkestone.

The treaty signed by Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand ceded a portion of Folkestone to the French and it was because the area was under joint Anglo-French jurisdiction that an arrest was possible.

However Mr Gale reacted furiously to the incident. "The whole situation is quite ridiculous. It is French bureaucracy gone mad.

"We have got to sort out this jurisdiction question. The concession that this part of the terminal would be viewed as French was granted in order to allow the policing of the Channel Tunnel. It was never intended to allow the French police to arrest a British subject on British soil and [in effect] kidnap him."

But Laurent Lemarchand, Deputy Press Counsellor at the French Embassy in London, defended his country's actions.

"As a French citizen, Mr Tuson was expected to complete his military service or seek exemption. He was sent two letters and could have exempted himself but he failed to reply to either.

"This failure meant that he was put on the draft-dodge list in March 1994. On Tuesday evening the French police in Folkestone told him that he had to comply with his military obligations. He was not however arrested.

"At the barracks he went through an enlistment test and he was declared unfit. He was never under lock and key and he was even given some money to buy lunch."

The reason for Mr Tuson's medical unfitness will not be released. M Lemarchand added that there had been several other such incidents of dual nationality draft-dodging in recent years although not in regard to Britain.

But Mr Tuson's father, John, 48, remained angry even after news of his son's release. "This boy only lived in France for the first three months of his life," he said.

"There has never been any suggestion in the past that he should have done military service in France just because he was born there all those years ago. As far as Henry is concerned he's English - and proud of it."

Mr Tuson's mother, Brigitte, revealed that she thought the matter of military service closed well before her son's arrest. She revealed that she had even taken legal advice on the matter.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "We made our concerns known to the French Embassy as soon as the incident happened. We are pleased that the matter has been resolved."