On Friday February 12th, the French prefecture announced its intention to demolish half of the Jungle one week later on Friday February 19th. A legal challenge to the evictions was submitted by the NGOs and legal teams working in Calais which resulted in the presiding judge visitng the camp on Tuesday 23rd February. She announced her verdict on Thursday 25th February ruling that the evictions are lawful and can go ahead. It was stated that social spaces would be safe. This is ambiguous. After all, what are people's homes if not social spaces? It was also stated that no evctions would take place for 3 weeks.
However, this morning only one day after the verdict, prefecture staff arrived at the camp at 9am to tell the affected residents that they had to move into either the containers or the reception centres around France, adding that the UK did not want them.
After an hour and a half, the prefecture went into hiding in the container compound due to the unprecedented amount of journalists, activists, NGO staff and lawyers following them.
This member of prefecture staff attempted on several occasions to tell those following her that they could not film or photograph events threatening to 'block' our cameras.