Calais migrant camps destroyed by French police

Three campsites housing hundreds of migrants have been evacuated and destroyed by police in the French port town of Calais.

The evictions, denounced by local rights organisations, had been announced by a local government prefect a week earlier on the grounds that the makeshift camps posed problems for public health and safety.

Around 200 riot police surrounded the camps housing migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia after a deadline to leave expired.

The governor of the Pas-de-Calais region, Denis Robin, speaking this morning, cited insanitary conditions in the camps and a scabies outbreak which he said was beginning to spread into the town of Calais.

Many migrants left the camps in advance of the operation with some seen leaving hurriedly carrying their blankets.

Migrants’ representatives were said to be in talks as to whether they would accept an offer from the authorities of leaving and being rehoused elsewhere in exchange of a promise not to arrest them.

They were being offered the chance to shower, receive medical attention and have a change of clothes, shoes and bedding.

Only one migrant so far has reportedly accepted this offer, while more than 200 are said to have moved into a food distribution centre.

The move comes after the French government closed the Sangatte Red Cross centre, near Calais, in 2002 after repeated lobbying by then-home British secretary David Blunkett. The camp was said to have been a staging post for thousands of migrants entering the UK illegally.

Calais has for years attracted immigrants who flee poverty or conflict in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them hoping to cross the narrow sea channel to Britain by ferry or the sub-sea train tunnel.

“This is sad, and it changes nothing,” said Jalal, an Iraqi in his 20s who watched as police moved in. “I’ll move my tent somewhere else ... but I am staying put (in Calais). What else can I do. I will try again to make the crossing. I did not come here just to give up now.”

Many of the estimated 600-800 immigrants living in the three camps had moved out before the well-publicised evacuation.

The operation came on the heels of the European Parliament elections, where the National Front took one in four votes to come first ahead of the mainstream centre-right opposition party and, in third place, the ruling Socialist Party. Pas-de-Calais lies in north-west France where the FN won 34 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, one of its best tallies and a tripling of its score from the 2009 EU election. The FN has long campaigned for a dramatic reduction in immigration and opposes the Schengen borderless zone at the heart of the 28-member European Union.

Reuters/PA