On the eve of a Dáil debate regarding the reception in Ireland of 200 unaccompanied minors from the migrant camp known as the Calais Jungle, French president François Hollande has promised all will leave the site "within days".
Mr Hollande said there were “still more than 1,500 lone minors” in the provisional reception centre in Calais, which is comprised of heated freight containers furnished with bunk beds.
"They have all been sheltered, whereas they were still in the mud and cold a week ago," he told the Voix du Nord newspaper.
He said he had discussed the problem with British prime minister Theresa May on Wednesday, after the British home secretary and French interior minister criticised each other's handling of the situation via the media.
A source at the interior ministry said Britain had only two criteria for accepting the minors: family ties in Britain and the "best interest" of the children, as defined by British law. France believes Britain will accept several hundred more children.
Reception centres
British officials are interviewing the children in Calais, and will move with them to reception centres for minors elsewhere in France, the interior ministry said.
“Those who do not go [to the UK] will be taken care of by children’s social services throughout [French] territory,” Mr Hollande said.
He assured residents of Calais that no one would be allowed to return to the camp.
The interior ministry source would not comment on the possibility of Ireland accepting minors from Calais, other than to say: “They want to go to the UK. They haven’t said they want to go to Ireland. That has to be taken account of.”
Of 2,000 unaccompanied minors who were present in Calais, 300 have already been taken to Britain, 1,500 are living temporarily in the containers and 200 have been transferred to centres in the Ariège, Charente-Maritime, Meurthe-et-Moselle and Morbihan departments.
Eleven of 22 minors who were taken to Fouras, Charente-Maritime, last Monday have already left. "One of them told us he was 24-years-old," the town's mayor, Sylvie Marcilly, told Le Figaro. "He's one of those who ran away. Those who have the best chance of being sent to England are staying."
Nineteen of 40 minors transferred to Sion, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, have already decamped.
The France Terre d’Asile association says more than 600 of the 2,000 minors claim to have family in the UK. Only 5 per cent want to stay in France.
