The region’s conservative mayor Natacha Bouchart claimed up to 1,000 migrants are sleeping rough on the city’s streets or in secret makeshift camps on the outskirts of town.
She said: “Between 800 and 1,000 people have returned to Calais. Migrants have decided, in an anarchic manner, that they have the right to be here. But don’t let them fool you – they are not helpless. Migrants know Calais better than anyone else.
“They have smartphones and nice clothes. They’ve been told that they have rights, but no duties.
“They drink themselves senseless – they down litres of vodka – and get into fights.”
But Fabien Sudry, the local government prefect, said the flow of migrants to Calais had slowed to a trickle in the past 12 months.
He accused Mrs Bouchart, who has been slammed by human rights’ groups for her hardline stance on the immigrant crisis and failure to provide for migrants’ basic needs, of blowing the migrant crisis out of proportion.
He said: “Mayor of Calais’s calculations go well beyond the most optimistic estimates.”
But he still admitted local authorities estimate up to 600 migrants are now in the Calais area, and local charities say there are 700.
The squalid ‘Jungle’ camp was torn down by French authorities on October 24 last year, and up to 8,000 migrants from countries including, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan were rehoused in temporary reception centres where they were told they could apply for asylum in France.
But scores of migrants, including unaccompanied minors, have since made their way back to Calais in the hope of crossing over to the UK, their destination of choice.
France’s interior minister Gérard Collomb confirmed over the summer the government had no plans to open a new emergency shelter in Calais, saying it would only encourage more migrants to return to the area.
But France’s migrant crisis is far from being over. The British charity Help Refugees claims there could be as many as 2,000 migrants living in makeshift tent camps dotted across northern France.