How the Calais Migrants Built an Economy Inside Tent City
A makeshift economy is springing up within the Calais migrant camp at the center of a U.K. political storm.
Video by Tom Mackenzie
This article is for subscribers only.
The Afghan men, sitting cross-legged on the floor of their small, well-stocked shop are drinking sweet tea and hand-making cigarettes. They neatly wrap bundles of 10 in tinfoil and stack them in piles. Cigarettes are good business here in the Calais migrant camp – “The Jungle”, as it is known to its inhabitants. They sell particularly well in the camp’s nightclub.
A mini-economy has emerged in this sprawling, 40-acre encampment. Roughly 2,500 men, women and children live here. They have built shops, restaurants, bars, a school, a church, and even a nightclub - all as some make nightly attempts to smuggle themselves into Britain.