UK pledges funding boost for security around Calais

Britain will give about $22mn in extra funding to boost security at the French port of Calais - where thousands of migrants have been living in squalor hoping to cross the Channel - France's minister for European affairs said on Thursday.

Britain has already contributed more than $65mn and "there will be around an extra $22mn" Harlem Desir told RFI radio, with the money used to boost "security of the access zone to the tunnel... and fighting trafficking networks".

The announcement came hours ahead of a summit between French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron in the northern city of Amiens, where the Calais crisis will be top of the agenda.

Over the past few days demolition workers have been razing makeshift shelters at the so-called Jungle migrant camp on the outskirts of Calais.

Police have deployed tear gas and water cannons as residents of the camp staged sit-ins in protest at plans to destroy the camp and house migrants further from the port and the entrance to the underground tunnel linking France and the UK.

The camp was built on a former toxic waste dump in 1999 for refugees from the Balkan wars, and remains a magnet for people hoping to reach Britain.

French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times on Wednesday that if Britain left the European Union following a referendum in June, France could cease keeping the migrants in Calais under an agreement where the border is on the French mainland.

"The day this relationship unravels, migrants will no longer be in Calais," Macron told the newspaper.