Footage has emerged of the Calais Jungle looking like a scene from a dystopian movie: fires burn as far as the eye can see while migrants let off fireworks and yell “fuck you!”
Two videos have been posted to Facebook (see here and here) by the French group ‘Calais Libre’ along with the comment “Here are the expelled migrants in action last night, and you can hear the pretty words that they use (fuck fuck fuck you)”.
According to the group, 300 migrants also attacked police on the local highway in the early hours of this morning.
Last week the French government expelled around one third of the 6,000 residents of The Jungle, moving them to nearby accommodation which had been purpose-built at a cost of €20 million (£15.4m), providing the migrants with proper beds, showers, electricity and heating.
Despite the freezing, unhygienic conditions in the shanty town, the migrants were angered by the move.
One Iraqi migrant told the BBC: “Personally, I wouldn’t go because they are requiring fingerprints and they are forcing us to stay in France to apply for asylum which we are not happy to do.”
Another migrant, from Eritrea, said he would “try to fight” the move, as “If we go inside to stay in the warm we don’t try to cross the border.”
Being in the camp near the motorway gave migrants a better chance of breaking into a lorry bound for the UK, he said. “The trucks that are coming here are mostly very quick. That is why we are near the road.”
Sharing the video, fellow Calais community-group Les Calaisiens en Colère, who have mounted nightly patrols to document events in Calais, commented: “Here you go, the apocalypse in the jungle! Tonight it’s back on, second night of burning! Next to the jungle, for those who don’t know, there are two factories,” adding: “they want war.”
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