Calais Jungle, January 2016. Flickr/MalachyBrowne. Some rights reserved.It was an undignified sight. On March 1 this year, hundreds of French police officers in riot gear and private contractors in orange vests streamed into the irregular refugee settlement outside Calais, also known as the “Jungle”, to demolish large numbers of makeshift housing structures and evict hundreds of inhabitants.
At the end of the day, smoke rose from the camp as some shelters accidently caught fire from the heat of tear gas canisters fired by the police, while others were set ablaze by refugees themselves as an act of defiance against the authorities’ intrusion.
But this premeditated demolition, which began after the prefecture of Calais had finally won a court battle on whether the unauthorised settlement was to be removed or not, is just the latest episode in an ongoing struggle of refugees, asylum-seekers, and other migrants for human dignity, safety, opportunity, and the right to choose their preferred place of residency – for many in Calais, that place is the United Kingdom.
