France's first ever internationally recognised refugee camp opens near Dunkirk

The Grande-Synthe camp, which will cater to up to 2,500 migrants, opened on Monday, offering migrants alternative housing to the boggy wasteland near Dunkirk

Migrants arrive at the new camp in Grande-Synthe
Migrants arrive at the new camp in Grande-Synthe Credit: Photo: AP

France's first ever refugee camp to meet international humanitarian standards opened near the northern port of Dunkirk on Monday as demolition work resumed at the notorious "Jungle" in Calais a few dozen miles up the coast.

The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), has so far built around 200 of 375 planned cabins at the Grande-Synthe site to house 2,500 people – based there in the hope of reaching Britain.

Most of these migrants – mainly Kurds from Iraq – have been living for months in atrocious conditions in the boggy, rat-infested camp of Grande-Synthe. Among them are 60 women and 74 children.

Damien Careme, the local Green mayor, has fought for the right to build the new camp against the wishes of the French government, which has refused to pay a centime towards it.

Some €2.6 million (£2 million) of the €3.1 million required to build the camp was stumped up by MSF with the remainder coming from the local town hall.

The camp costs a fraction of the €15 million the state paid to build semi-permanent housing in Calais, contracting a company that managed a popular French rock festival to build it and relying on charity for food.

Three Iraqi Kurd families were the first to be bussed to the new site, whose wooden cabins boast proper lavatories, heating, a collective kitchen, public lighting and a field hospital but no fences.

Unlike in Calais, where the state has paid for numbered shipping containers that are guarded and require migrants' hand prints to gain entry, the Grande-Synthe camp has no such controls, with authorities hoping this will make it easier to persuade migrants to move in.

Many have refused to do so in Calais, worrying that their movements will be restricted and they will stand less chance of reaching Britain.

"It's a great day for human solidarity," said Mr Careme.

"I've overcome a failure of the state," he said, adding that he could no longer bear the sight of so many children living in such squalid conditions in the original camp.

The French government is unhappy with the new camp as it goes against its attempts to move refugees away from the northern coastal area and into around 100 centres around the country.

"The government's policy is not to reconstitute a camp at Grande-Synthe, but to make it go away," Jean-Francois Cordet, the government's representative in northern France, said last month.

Some claim it risks becoming a "new Sangatte", referring to the notorious Red Cross welcome centre shut in 2002, and could see many migrants evicted from the "Jungle" moving there.

Tim Loughton, a Conservative MP and member of the Commons’ home affairs select committee, recently said: “This sends out an unhelpful signal to more people who are led to believe – often by illegal traffickers – that the streets of Britain are paved with gold.”

Occupants of the original, muddy camp have until Thursday to vacate the site. Some 800 have already signed up to move.

The numbers in Grande Synthe have gone down from around 3,000 to a little over 1,000 in recent months as many migrants have moved to Belgian and other northern French sites in the hope of finding easier ways of reaching the UK. Mr Careme said the drop in numbers also suggested many had managed to cross to Britain.

"They paid to get to the UK and are very certainly there as we speak," he told Le Monde.

Meanwhile, over in Calais authorities began a second week of demolition of makeshift shelters at the Jungle, the region's largest refugee camp.

Nine Iranians who last week stitched their mouths shut in protest at the demolition, said they were carrying out a hunger strike.

Five acres of the Jungle were destroyed last week, and authorities said it could take a month or more to demolish the southern half of the camp.

Local authorities claim there were between 800 and 1,000 migrants living in the southern half, but aid groups say the number was far higher – around 3,500.