French Authorities Begin Clearing 'Jungle' Migrant Camp in Calais
October 24 2016 - 5:40AM
Dow Jones News
PARIS—The French government begun on Monday clearing out the
'Jungle,' a sprawling migrant camp along the English Channel that
has become a symbol of Europe's failure to manage the flow of
migrants across its borders.
Hundreds of migrants carrying bundles of possessions lined up
outside a warehouse outside Calais, under heavy police presence, to
get into buses parked outside the camp.
The goal is to transfer the several thousand migrants camping
out on the windswept dunes of Calais to dozens of shelters across
the country by the end of the week, French authorities said.
France's Socialist government is facing growing public pressure
over perceived sluggishness in responding to the migrant crisis in
northern France.
Waves of migrants seeking passage to the U.K. have become
bottled up in the port on the French side of the English Channel,
living in sordid conditions and hurting the local economy.
Previous attempts to solve the Calais crisis have failed as
migrants continued flocking to the port, which serves as
continental Europe's main gateway to the U.K. Since March, the
British government has accepted over a hundred minors who have
family in the U.K. But it has refused to take in the large numbers
of migrants camped in Calais and has financed the construction of
security fences in French territory to keep refugees from crossing
the channel.
Write to Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 24, 2016 05:25 ET (09:25 GMT)
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