Calais News

Hundreds of French police cleared a huge migrant camp in northeast Paris on Friday in a fresh sign of the government`s determination to take refugees off the streets and into shelters.

Bulldozers are flattening the sprawl of ramshackle huts and tents which had been home to about 6,000 refugees and migrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

France began clearing the so-called "Jungle" migrant camp in the northern city of Calais on Monday ahead of its planned demolition.

Migrants began arriving early Monday at official meeting points set by French authorities as part of the full evacuation of the Calais "Jungle" camp, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

Migrants at the camp in the ferry port of Calais will board buses at 0600 GMT to take them to nearly 300 temporary accommodation centres dotted round France.

France will dismantle the sprawling "Jungle" migrant camp in the northern port of Calais "as rapidly as possible", the interior minister said Friday after visiting the site.

France's Interior Minister on Friday sought to defuse a row over the fate of migrants in Calais should Britain leave the EU, saying there was "no question" of letting them freely cross the Channel.

Clashes with police broke out on Monday as work got underway to clear part of the shanty town outside Calais in northern France where migrants are trying to reach Britain.

A court in Lille, north France upheld the decision to evacuate thousands of migrants camping in Calais, rejecting NGOs request to halt the eviction`s order, Pas-de Calais prefecture authorities has said.

Three migrants from the Grande-Synthe camp near Dunkirk, northern France, were injured on Tuesday in what a charity worker said appeared to be a fight between rival bands of smugglers.

Many of the refugees and migrants want to reach Britain because they speak English, or because they have relatives there. 

Riot police and migrants camped near the French port of Calais have clashed in overnight violence that aid workers said reflects the growing frustration of refugees' inability to smuggle themselves aboard trucks and trains bound for England.

French police Monday fired tear gas as they broke down several makeshift camps around the port city of Calais, leaving nearly 400 people, mostly Syrian refugees, without shelter.