Workers begin knocking down camp
FRANCE: French workers have begun demolishing the ‘‘Jungle’’ shanty town in Calais, wielding sledgehammers to tear down makeshift dwellings as former residents - migrants seeking entry to Britain - were moved out.
Police equipped with a water cannon stood guard over the demolition yesterday, while hundreds of migrants - some of whom have lived in the scrubland on the northern French coast for months or years - waited for buses to take them for resettlement across France.
‘‘The migrants have known for a long time this was going to happen,’’ the Calais region’s prefect, Fabienne Buccio, told Reuters after arriving at the camp escorted by between 150 and 200 riot police.
Groups of young men who have fled war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, kept warm around piles of burning rubbish in the camp, a filthy expanse that has become a symbol of Europe’s failed migration policies.
After being processed, 1636 left yesterday, bringing the total to 4014 since the start of the week, according to Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
As dusk gathered some migrants burned abandoned tents, but there was no repeat of the minor skirmishes with security forces seen over the weekend and officials said the operation was going peacefully.
For many of the migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and other conflict zones, the closure of the Jungle marks the end of a dream to reach Britain, which lies a tantalisingly short sea crossing away. ‘‘We know the Jungle is over,’’ said Aarash, a 21-year-old Afghan as he made his way to the hangar where immigration officials were processing the migrants.
‘‘We will see if we can get on a bus today, but we want a good city, like one near Paris. If we can’t go there we will come back to the Jungle.’’
Some migrants said that they would resist efforts to resettle them in France, clinging to the hope of eventually smuggling themselves across the English Channel.