French president Hollande pledged on Saturday to “completely dismantle” the notorious Jungle encampment in Calais.
"There will be no camps in France," Hollande said.
He said that “reception and orientation centres around the country” for asylum seekers would be set up. The centres will house 40 to 50 people each for up to four months while their cases are being examined. Anyone not seeking asylum will be repatriated.
The squalid Jungle camp, which houses between 7,000 and 10,000 migrants trying to enter the UK, is to be cleared “before winter”. Observers have reported seeing some preparations already underway.
Moreover, steps have been promised to prevent similar camps cropping up.
The measures were announced on a visit to the migrant reception center in Tours, one of the country’s 154 such centres. The president said conditions there were not acceptable, especially for people fleeing war.
During his four years in office, Hollande has never visited the Calais camp, but is scheduled to visit the city on Monday.
Both former president Nicolas Sarkozy and far-right leader Marine Le Pen are campaigning for votes in next year’s elections, both on platforms of security, patriotism and national interest. The Calais Jungle has risen up the political agenda as the spring elections near.
Even though officials say that more than 5,000 migrants have left Calais for reception centres, the number in the Jungle has soared to 9,000 or 10,000.
Hollande’s announcement has cast a spell of even greater uncertainty among the camp’s inhabitants as they see their chances of getting to Britain slipping further away.
A startling number of those residents are unaccompanied children. The Help Refugees charity reports a 51% increase in unaccompanied minors in the past month, with 11 arriving every day. Many have had to be turned away because there are not enough beds in the emergency shelter.
The UK’s anti-slavery commissioner, Kevin Hyland, said that young people were being coerced into criminal activity and girls are being forced into prostitution in the camp to pay people smugglers. Conditions in the camp, particularly for youngsters without families nearby, are causing mental health problems.
