Police clear out trafficking ‘base camp’

FRENCH police cleared out, then bulldozed, a squalid forest camp near the northern city of Calais yesterday, detaining hundreds of illegal immigrants who had hoped to slip across the English Channel into Britain.

French Immigration Minister Eric Besson called the site — known as the Jungle — a “base camp for human traffickers”, who promise the migrants passage for enormous fees or dump them there after bringing them acrossEurope.

The people who camped here — mainly immigrants from Afghanistan — have strained relations between Britain and France and become a symbol of Europe’s struggle with illegal immigration.