A pregnant migrant threatened to cut her wrists as police moved to demolish her tent in the Calais Jungle yesterday.
The woman, thought to be Iranian, made her threat on the second day of an operation to evacuate 1,000 people from the southern section of the makeshift camp. She was among 20 or so people, migrants but also left-wing activists, who climbed on to their shelters in to try to prevent their destruction.
The woman and her husband were hauled off the roof by police after getting out a knife and saying that they would cut their wrists.
“The man said that his wife was pregnant,” an interior ministry official said. “They did not need medical treatment and they were released immediately. No action was taken against them.”
More than 100 riot police officers were drafted in to the camp for the second day running to protect the demolition workers ripping apart tents and cabins in the zone that is being cleared.
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Amid a tense stand-off, several tents burst into flames. Migrants said they had been burnt by the police, but officers said that the fires had been started by left-wing activists as a protest.
Jean-Paul Valensi, the state prosecutor in Boulogne-sur-Mer, near Calais, said that three activists had been arrested during police clashes on Monday.
A British woman was released yesterday, but a British man and a German woman were detained on suspicion of setting fire to tents, he said.
Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, is seeking to halve the size of the camp, which he said sheltered about 4,000 migrants wanting to reach the UK. His officials are offering two options: a move into government shelters within the Jungle, or a transfer to one of 102 migrant centres in other French cities, where migrants can apply for asylum in France.
The transfer makes sense, according to Mr Cazeneuve, given that it is now almost impossible to cross the Channel.
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At least 2,000 migrants have left northern France for Belgium in recent weeks, in the hope of stowing away on a ferry from Zeebrugge. That route was blocked last week, however, when Belgium reimposed checks on the border with France.
The reason, French officials said, was that they were under the influence of left-wing activists who were telling them they would be sent back to their countries of origin if they left the Jungle. Officials said that this was wrong although it was widely believed.
The result is despair as migrants find themselves trapped in an ever shrinking camp with, they believe, no way out.
