Top French court orders government to provide water to Calais migrants.
PARIS (Reuters) – France’s highest administrative court on Monday ruled President Emmanuel Macron’s government and the Calais region must provide hundreds of migrants with drinking water, showers and toilets.
Charities and the national human rights watchdog have been fiercely critical of the squalid conditions facing hundreds of migrants who have converged again on the northern port city after government bulldozers razed a camp known as the "Jungle".
Rejecting that appeal, the Conseil d’Etat ruled that the treatment of migrants was inhuman.
"These shortcomings are a serious and unlawful infringement on a fundamental freedom."
While Macron has called for migrants to be treated with dignity, his own government has taken a tough stance, refusing to open a new migrant reception center in Calais, saying it would act as a magnet for other migrants.
Last week, Human Rights Watch pressed France to end what it described as recurrent police violence against migrants in Calais, where hundreds have returned despite the demolition of a sprawling camp.
Many of the Calais migrants seek a better life in Britain.
The European Union is struggling to find a coherent answer to a migration crisis that has tested cooperation between member states.
Macron has instructed his government to speed up France’s asylum process.