French security forces tracked down and turned back about 130 refugees who trampled fences and evaded guards at the Channel Tunnel entrance in a desperate effort to enter Britain.
French police, riot squads and troops scrambled for about eight hours on Tuesday night to round up the asylum seekers in the tunnel and used teargas to repulse a separate group of 400 approaching the entrance, police sources said. British police, who joined the hunt with sniffer dogs, said the French had stopped all the refugees, who overwhelmed outnumbered security guards in their initial surprise push. No one was injured in the incident, the latest in a long series of refugees' attempts to reach Britain, where they hope to win permanent residency and a better life.
Britain has been pressing France to do more to stop refugees getting through the tunnel. French officials have said the blame lies with Britain's relatively liberal asylum laws, saying they create the picture of an "El Dorado" for impoverished migrants.
The incident disrupted passenger and freight traffic for more than 10 hours, with services returning to normal by 6.45 a.m., according to Eurotunnel.
"Some passengers had to be lodged in hotels overnight, but as it was Christmas the traffic levels were very low," said a spokeswoman for Eurotunnel, which runs the undersea rail link between France and Britain.
The nationality of the refugees involved on Tuesday was not immediately known, but a nearby Red Cross centre houses illegal immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
"A group of about 130 people gained access to the area after having broken through fences and electronic locks," the spokeswoman said. "The [security] forces at the scene were not numerous enough to intercept them, so the illegals got into the two railway tunnels."
Train traffic through the tunnel dried up on Christmas Day, giving the refugees a better chance of walking the roughly 40 km through it undetected.
Alerted by security forces, police and military personnel were able to enter the tunnel through a separate entrance about 15 km away, trapping the refugees from both sides.
Roughly 40 of them were in police custody, while the rest were taken to the Red Cross centre in nearby Sangatte to join about 1,000 illegal immigrants housed there. Yesterday, a leading executive at Eurotunnel criticised the "passivity" of the French and British governments in dealing with the recurring refugee problem.
The operator said repeated delays in Channel Tunnel traffic caused by the asylum seekers are hurting business and have urged France to close the Sangatte facility and find an alternative solution for the refugees staying there.
The company invested 23 million French francs (€3.51 million) this year to bolster security on its site, where it employs 350 security guards.
"The French and British governments have taken a passive approach to this problem, saying a lot but doing nothing, and letting the situation deteriorate," Eurotunnel's deputy managing director, Mr Alain Bertrand, said.
"The frustration of these people in Sangatte, only 2 km from the entrance to our site, is rising and rising."
Refugees regularly try to enter Britain illegally from France on ferries, by train or through the Channel Tunnel. In late October, French police arrested up to 200 would-be illegal immigrants after they broke into a freight yard near the Channel Tunnel in the hope of reaching Britain.
That followed another incident in early September, when about 100 refugees entered the tunnel terminal before being turned back. The Blair government is under intense pressure from opposition parties and the media to prove it is no "soft touch" on asylum.
French authorities, meanwhile, have come under fire for the overcrowded camp in Sangatte, which was originally set up as a temporary shelter for a few hundred refugees camping out in the streets and public parks of nearby Calais.
Just last month, French riot police used teargas to break up clashes between Afghan and Kurdish refugees at the camp.
In September, British officials agreed to help staff the French end of the tunnel in a joint attempt to crack down on refugees.