Lorry drivers face burning barricades and armed gangs at Calais

Gangs of migrants have once again started setting up burning road blocks in Calais to halt lorries heading to the UK so they can climb aboard and hitch a ride.


After France dismantled the Jungle camp in the northern town last year it was hoped migrants would disperse across the country.


Instead, they continue to flock to Calais to try and make their way to Britain and tensions are now starting to boil over.


Video footage shows how migrants have placed burning trees across a motorway. In the shocking footage men are seen waving clubs at truck drivers, as they try to board the UK-bound lorries.


The Calais migrant camp was razed to the ground in October meaning some 10,000 refugees waiting to get into Britain were moved across France.


They have now started filtering back towards the north coast in an attempt to launch a fresh bid to reach the UK in the warmer summer months.


With the uncertainty of Brexit and with the French government going though a transitional period under Emmanuel Macron, the border could be seen as a soft target by those looking to cross it.


At the end of May a French official warned of a fresh surge of migrants in Calais trying to get into the UK just six months after the notorious Jungle camp was closed.


President of the Regional Council of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand wrote to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to say a summer swell is imminent.


It was expected to bring with it a wave of violence, and prompted British truckers to call for increased protection in Calais following the first serious attacks by migrants since the demolition of the refugee camp.


The warning wasn't acted upon, and a couple of days later UK-bound migrants set fire to an improvised barricade in the middle of a busy motorway near Calais.


Migrants tried to use the obstruction on the A16 at Marck to force lorries heading to England to stop so they could climb aboard and the tactic has been repeated.


It is just over six months since the vast shantytown was torn to the ground, and some 10,000 UK-bound asylum seekers dispersed across France.


Officially, they are all now banned from the Calais area, but a series of 'extremely violent' incidents last Sunday shows they are slowly returning.


'They set up roadblocks using dustbins, and then tried to stop lorries heading for England so they could get aboard,' said a local police source.


'Two windscreens were smashed, while another lorry had its tyres punctured. One driver was taken to hospital with face injuries.'


In turn, Pauline Bastidon, of the Freight Transport Association, said: 'There is a need for urgent action by the French government to ensure that the area is policed adequately, and to protect drivers transporting goods, so that trade can continue to flow freely between France and the UK.'