France clears Calais camp

French demolition teams cleared the last shacks in the Calais "Jungle" on Monday, signalling the end of the notorious camp as concerns mount for thousands of migrants sleeping rough in Paris.
By Wednesday evening, squads of workers using diggers, tractors and cranes had torn down the final tents and makeshift migrant homes on the windswept stretch of northern coastline.
Sand, mud and piles of rubbish now mark the spot where thousands of migrants and refugees passed through as they tried to sneak into Britain, making the "Jungle" camp a symbol of Europe's migrant crisis. Only a church and two small mosques have been spared destruction and they will be preserved only for as long as more than 1,000 unaccompanied teenagers are housed nearby in temporary containers. The minors await news of their transfer to Britain or alternative housing in France, with their fate a source of enduring tension between London and Paris.
"They said there was going to be a bus today. When?" asked 18-year-old Mohammed from Sudan, as he rode a bike near where a street of shops had stood in the camp.
At its height the camp was home to more than 10,000 people, with the squalid conditions, crime and disruption to Calais's crucial port and train link to Britain a source of anger and embarrassment in France. Six months before elections, Socialist President Francois Hollande is on a drive to take migrants off the streets and transfer them to shelters around the country where they can seek asylum.
On Saturday, he declared that the existence of squalid settlements was "unbecoming of what a French welcome should be".
"We will no longer tolerate them," he said.
While the Calais camp is now demolished and thousands have been sent to lodgings elsewhere, the fate of the unaccompanied minors housed in containers near the site remains unresolved.
France has called on Britain, the intended final destination for most Jungle migrants, to do more. Since mid-October, Britain has taken in over 270 children and has promised to take in hundreds more. While there appears to be fresh political will to tackle the migrant crisis in France, activists warn that a new camp in Calais could sprout up and that the country lacks sufficient capacity to house all those in need.