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)