France to close 2nd camp for migrants

Paris, March 15: France said on Wednesday that security forces would start dismantling another migrant camp on its northern coast near the port of Dunkirk “as soon as possible” after clashes at the site.

The population of the Grande-Synthe camp has swelled to about 1,400 to 1,500 people since the destruction last October of the squalid “Jungle” camp near Calais, about 40 km away.

“It’s no longer just a question of re-establishing public order” in the camp, interior minister Bruno Le Roux told a hearing at the French Senate.

France will proceed with a “progressive dismantling of the camp which should start as soon as possible,” he said, adding that “we can’t let things continue like this.”

For more than a decade France’s northern coast has been a magnet for refugees and migrants trying to reach Britain, with French authorities repeatedly tearing down camps in the region.

The Grande-Synthe camp, populated mostly by Kurds at present, was built by the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to house migrants and refugees who otherwise sleep in tents or makeshift shelters.

They gather along the northern coast in France seeking to break into trucks heading to Britain or pay smugglers to help them get across the Channel.

Police intervened at the camp after five men were injured in a fight at the start of the month. Another man was stabbed in November.