Holiday warning as strikers fire flare at Channel ferry

BRITISH holidaymakers were given an official warning yesterday to avoid militant French workers who fired a distress flare at a ferry.

Travellers heading back to the UK were urged to find an alternative route home.

Anyone travelling through the French port was also told to keep their vehicle doors locked because of the ‘large number of illegal migrants’ trying to reach the UK.

After weeks of disruption to Eurotunnel and ferry services, Home Secretary Theresa May will today hold talks with her French counterparts amid fears the chaos at Calais will escalate over the busy school holidays.

Yesterday, scores of families travelling with the ferry company DFDS Seaways had their journey to Calais rerouted to Dunkirk, almost 30 miles away.

DFDS said that because of safety concerns for passengers and staff, it was not willing to sail from Calais.

This followed an alarming incident in which a distress flare hit one of the company’s vessels. It is the latest trouble caused by striking French ferry workers at the Eurotunnel terminal, which has seen Channel Tunnel services suspended.

Motorists have faced long queues while drivers in Kent have faced gridlock on the roads because of lorries at a standstill on the M20.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: ‘There is an ongoing possibility of disruption to cross-Channel services as a result of industrial action and migrant activity in and around Calais.’

Last night a DFDS source confirmed that a flare hit the ferry Malo Seaways.

He said: ‘There were only crew on board at the time. They were preparing for the embarkation of vehicles for the next sailing. No one was injured, but potentially it could have caused damage.

‘ We don’t know if t he culprit has been apprehended.’