A French bishop defended the demolition of a migrant camp in northern France while urging greater help for displaced refugees and a "change of mentality" toward asylum-seekers.
Bishop Jean-Paul Jaeger of Arras said the transfer of people from the camp in Calais, known as the Jungle because of squalor and overcrowding, was necessary because of "its unhealthiness and the precarious subsistence conditions" that exist there.
"These people have often been jeered at by the very networks which led them toward an imagined promised land. Their departure from our seaboard can and must be accompanied by increased respect, especially toward minors, single women and people in poor health," said Bishop Jaeger, whose diocese encompasses Calais.
