In 2001 alone, 54,000 people “attacked” the Channel Tunnel terminal in Calais and 5,000 had gotten through.
Migrants evicted from Calais moved to Paris and established a massive squatter camp at the Jardins d’Eole, a public park near the Gare du Nord station, from where high-speed Eurostar trains travel to and arrive from London. The area has become a magnet for human traffickers who charge migrants thousands of euros for fake travel documents, for passage to London.
The President of the Alpes-Maritimes region, Eric Ciotti, criticized the government’s “irresponsible” plan to relocate migrants in Calais to other parts of France. He said the plan would “proliferate a multitude of small Calais, genuine areas of lawlessness that exacerbate lasting tensions throughout the country.”
A whistleblower reported that volunteer aid workers at “The Jungle” were forging sexual relationships with migrants, including children. “Female volunteers having sex enforces the view (that many have) that volunteers are here for sex,” he said.
French President François Hollande has vowed “definitively, entirely and rapidly” to dismantle “The Jungle,” a squalid migrant camp in the northern port town of Calais, by the end of this year.
Hollande made the announcement during a September 26 visit to Calais — but not to the camp itself — amid growing unease over France’s escalating migrant crisis, which has become a central issue in the country’s presidential campaign.
The French government plans to relocate the migrants at the camp to so-called reception centers in other parts of the country. But it remains unclear how the government will prevent migrants from returning to Calais.
Sceptics say the plan to demolish “The Jungle” is a publicity stunt that will temporarily displace the migrants but will not resolve the underlying problem — that French officials refuse either to deport illegal migrants or else to secure the country’s borders to prevent illegal migrants from entering France in the first place.
The decision to demolish the camp came just days after construction work began on a wall in Calais, a major transport hub on the edge of the English Channel, to prevent migrants at the camp from stowing away on cars, trucks, ferries and trains bound for Britain.
