Migrant inf lux swells Jungle camp to 9,000

A JUDGE has blocked attempts to tear down scores of businesses at the Calais Jungle as it emerged the number of migrants at the camp has topped 9,000.

Authorities wanted to shut 72 stalls, including restaurants and cafes, at the rapidly growing camp.

Charities working in the Jungle say that the population has risen by more than 2,000 in the past month alone.

Despite admitting the camp’s businesses are illegal, a court refused to allow them to be torn down – claiming they give migrants ‘a calm meeting place’.

Judge Jean-Francois Molla said fears about owners operating without rules were understandable and he raised concerns over the lack of ‘the most basic sanitary norms’. However, he said the shops fulfilled ‘other functions’ for the camp’s inhabitants who lived in ‘conditions of extreme precariousness and total inactivity’.

The bid to tear down the stalls had been brought by the Nord prefecture, which covers Calais.

It has promised to challenge the decision and described the everexpanding number of shops as an underground economy.

Authorities have repeatedly tried to shut the Jungle, which acts as a base for migrants hoping to reach Britain by clambering aboard vehicles heading to Britain.

The president of France’s northern region, Xavier Bertrand, has also called for new security measures to deal with migrants heading to Britain. Among his proposals were calls for drones to monitor the port and a nighttime curfew for migrants.

A charity yesterday said the number of migrants travelling there in the hope of crossing the Channel had rocketed.

A census carried out by two charities working in the camp found it now has 9,106 inhabitants – an increase of 29 per cent in a month.

That includes about 865 children, more than three-quarters of them living without any family members.

The French government insists that numbers at the camp have in fact fallen to 4,500.

Christophe Salame, of Auberge des Migrants, said knocking down the ‘awful slum’ could increase migrants’ desire to reach the UK.