Last night Blulitespecial tipped me off to the story that the government of France had finally decided to take action against the immigrant slum that had been growing at Calais and that it would be shut down today. This morning reader BL sent the story that the deed had been done.
Just a reminder that we discussed Calais last year when a naive reporter was raped when she ventured there to see what an awful life the poor souls were leading, here.
From CNN today:
CALAIS, France (CNN) — French authorities on Tuesday dismantled a makeshift camp dubbed “the Jungle,” which housed illegal migrants fleeing dangerous homelands to seek a more prosperous life in Europe.
French police broke up protests by refugee rights advocates and began clearing the squalid camp. The French government said it was targeting human smuggling and did not say where the migrants would be relocated.
Police arrested 276 migrants, 125 of whom were minors, said Calais prefecture official Catherine Mande.
A statement from the French immigration minister’s office said the “illegal encampments” would be destroyed and then three bulldozers, a dozen trucks and a logging company would return the land to its natural state.
The statement said the goal was to destroy the Jungle and other migrant shanties, “which have become the main launch pad for clandestine immigration into the United Kingdom.”
[…..]
The Jungle — shanties cobbled from cardboard, plastic tarpaulins and scraps of wood — housed as many as 1,000 men from nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia. [One report tells us that the mostly Muslim migrants had built a makeshift mosque in the shanty town.]
Here is a SkyNews story with additional details.