Migrants made about 115,000 attempts to cross the Channel from Calais last year despite the evacuation of the Jungle, a source at the French presidency said yesterday.
It came as President Macron’s aides claimed to have secured Theresa May’s agreement for Britain to accept more migrants from Calais while funding improved border security at the port.
Officials say there are about 500 migrants in Calais, compared with about 7,000 before the destruction of the Jungle, Calais’ makeshift camp, in October 2016. Charities put the present number at about 700 and say there are a further 300 or so further up the coast in Grande Synthe, near Dunkirk.
Yet although there are a tenth of the number of migrants in Calais, the number of attempts to