Britain hopes a 4 meter-high (13 foot-high) concrete wall will succeed where security guards and barbed wire have failed, and stop migrants reaching the United Kingdom from the northern French port of Calais.
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The one kilometre long, 13ft high barrier is part of a multi-million pound package of joint measures by the United Kingdom and France to tighten security at the French port. “We are determined to stay on the (freeway) for the time we need”, he said.
It is aimed at migrants in the camp called the “Jungle” in Calais, which is home to 9,000 migrants and refugees living in squalid tents and makeshift shelters.
Drivers say migrants and people trafficking gangs have attacked their vehicles with metal bars. But migrants are using increasingly unsafe tactics to slow trucks and hitch a ride.
British Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill told the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday the wall project will begin soon.
“We have been frustrated by the lamentable reaction of the French Government so far given the collapse of public order in the Calais region, and the impossible position it has put their citizens and businesses in”.
But British truck drivers criticized the wall as a “poor use of taxpayers’ money”.
Numerous fences have been built to protect the port, the Eurotunnel terminal and train tracks on the other side of Calais, and the BBC understands the wall will not replace any of those.
France dismantled the southern half of the Jungle camp in February and March and the government said last week it would shut down the rest, but gave no timeframe.
Building on the 1km-long wall along the ferry port’s main dual-carriageway approach road, known as the Rocade, is due to start this month.
A BLOCKADE of lorries is causing chaos on the roads around Calais as locals mount a campaign for the Jungle migrant camp to be demolished.
Pressure has been growing on French authorities to tackle the camp, which has swelled in size in recent months, and talks took place between protest organisers and French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Friday.
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Attempts by migrants to enter Britain by walking through the Channel Tunnel have sometimes proven deadly: Aid group Auberge des Migrants says 11 migrants have died this year, seven on the highways.
