Immigration vehicles pass parked lorries on the M20 motorway, which leads from London to the Channel Tunnel terminal at Ashford and the Ferry Terminal at Dover, as part of Operation Stack in  southern England, yesterday. Prime Minister David Cameron drew up plans to help France tackle a spike in attempts by migrants to enter Britain illegally via the Channel Tunnel, but warned there was no quick fix.

Agencies/London/Calais


British Prime Minister David Cameron promised yesterday to provide more security fencing and sniffer dogs to aid French police in repelling attempts by migrants to board Channel Tunnel trains to Britain.
Speaking after an emergency ministerial meeting in London, Cameron also said that defence ministry land would be used to park trucks waiting to cross to the French port of Calais.
“The situation is not acceptable... We’re going to put in more fencing, more resources, more sniffer dog teams,” Cameron said, warning that the cross-Channel migrants issue would last through the next few months.
“I’ll be speaking to President (Francois) Hollande later today. I want to thank him for the extra police resources that have been put in, which have had some effect.”
“We are keen to offer more and work hand in glove with them to reduce pressure on that side of the border.”
Britain has pledged £22mn so far towards improving security at the French end of the Channel Tunnel.
French police have in recent days prevented thousands of desperate attempts to scale fences around the tunnel terminal in Coquelles near Calais, although many migrants have successfully made it across.
France sent 120 additional officers to the site this week.
Cameron is under pressure to deter the migrants, many of whom have travelled from Africa and the Middle East, after disruption to cross-Channel passenger and freight traffic.
Re-elected in May, Cameron has promised to cut net annual migration to Britain to the tens of thousands, a pledge he failed to keep during his 2010-15 term in office when it hit a near record high of over 300,000 people.
The issue is a sensitive one as it plays into Britain’s debate about Europe ahead of an EU membership referendum Cameron has promised by the end of 2017.
Migrants have long gathered in Calais to try to get into Britain. But Eurotunnel, the firm that runs freight and passenger shuttles via the Channel Tunnel, says numbers have swelled to around 5,000 people from about 600 and that it is struggling to cope.
It says migrants have also become better organised, mounting nightly attempts in large groups to storm the facilities.
Eurotunnel has sometimes been forced to suspend its services, causing disruption at what is one of the busiest times of the year for British holidaymakers.
The situation has caught the imagination of Britain’s tabloid newspapers, becoming a political headache for Cameron.
He is under pressure to get tough on the migrants from many lawmakers in his ruling Conservatives. But he also has to contend with political rivals unhappy with the debate’s tone.
The opposition Labour Party has criticised Cameron for referring to the migrants as a “swarm”, saying the term was dehumanising and stirred public hostility against people sometimes fleeing poverty and conflict.   
Meanwhile, French police said they had prevented more than 1,000 desperate attempts by migrants to get into Britain via the Channel Tunnel yesterday.
“More than 1,000 attempts were thwarted last night, with around 30 arrests,” the source said, adding there were no reports of migrants injured in their bid to enter the undersea tunnel linking France and Britain.
Police reinforcements appeared to be having an impact, as the number of nightly attempts to penetrate the Eurotunnel premises has roughly halved since its peak at the beginning of the week.
France has sent 120 additional police officers to the northern port city of Calais to stem the crisis, as the number of deaths since June reached 10.
One man died in the early hours of Wednesday, apparently crushed by a lorry as he tried to make it into the tunnel.
A spokesman for Eurotunnel said there had been “much less disruption” since the reinforcements arrived to bolster the 300-strong police contingent already stationed in the city.
At least four coaches of riot police were on Friday morning guarding the entrance to the tunnel, where the situation was calm.
A police source said that, while the reinforcements had helped, “the pressure of the migrants is still there” and the “situation remains difficult to deal with.”
However, this source said there had been far fewer migrants managing to get onto the Eurotunnel platforms and get on the train shuttles going to England.
During the night, an AFP journalist saw waves of people descend onto the railways on foot close to the Eurotunnel site only to be halted by police.
At least a dozen more made it past the cordon, but ran straight into a second line of officers waiting a hundred metres further down the line.  
Around 3,000 people from countries including Syria and Eritrea are camping out in the northern French port of Calais and trying to cross into Britain illegally by clambering on board lorries and trains.

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