Sangatte closure fails to deter immigrants

Up to 100 asylum-seekers are being stopped each week trying to get into Britain from Calais - a year to the day since the Sangatte refugee camp shut its doors.

The camp was closed to new arrivals as part of a deal to stop it being used as a staging post by those desperate to get refugee status in Britain.

But French border police say they are still stopping scores of people trying to sneak onto lorries or trains to Britain.

They say the situation may even have worsened with asylum seekers now dispersing to other ports.

The Red Cross hostel was used by 68,000 refugees as a springboard to Britain over three years.

When it was demolished there were around 3,000 immigrants in Calais.

Police calculate around 400 are now there at any time, but hundreds more are using ports from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Roscoff in Brittany.

A spokesman for the police said: "When Sangatte was open we knew where they were. Now they are everywhere."

P&O Ferries said it caught almost 200 people trying to sneak onto boats from Calais to Dover in the first two weeks of September alone.

A Calais town hall spokesman blamed the UK's "lax employment regulations" for the ongoing crisis.

French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy wants port police to arrest illegal immigrants who refuse to apply for asylum in France and escort them back to the border at which they entered the country.

Police say they do not have the manpower.