The United Kingdom will not become a “safe haven” for migrants in Calais, David Cameron has warned, after hundreds continued their attempts to cross from France.
The prime minister warned illegal immigrants would be removed, as migrants told the BBC they remained determined to reach the UK.
Mr Cameron was speaking after people gathered for a third night at fencing at the Channel Tunnel freight terminal.
Over 3,500 attempts have been made this week to get into the tunnel.
Several hundred migrants were escorted away from the terminal by French police on Wednesday night - the third night of large-scale attempts to storm it.
New fencing is being installed in Calais and Eurotunnel said it would protect the platform area where vehicles are loaded on to the train shuttles to “stop the migrants... trying to jump on to the train shuttles there.”
As night fell on Wednesday, the road towards the Channel Tunnel started to come alive. Groups of 10 or 12 migrants moved steadily along the darkened highway, jackets pulled close, hoods up.
After a day of discussion in Paris and London over how to secure the tunnel, and fresh deployments of riot police, the determination of Calais’ migrants seems unchanged.
They include people like Jamal - an Ethiopian who arrived here on Wednesday.
He said he’d spent most of his adult life doing military service in the Ethiopian army, had spent 10 days drifting in the Mediterranean, and had crossed six different European countries to get here.
Not once had his dream of reaching England wavered. For Jamal, a barbed wire fence, or brush with police, might change his tactics, but probably not his goal.
A Sudanese national aged between 25 and 30 was crushed by a lorry on Tuesday, the ninth person to die attempting to cross the Channel in the past month.
Speaking in Vietnam during his tour of South East Asia, Mr Cameron said the French had sent an extra 120 police to Calais and the UK was investing in fencing and security.
“Everything that can be done will be done to make sure our borders are secure and make sure that British holidaymakers are able to go on their holidays,” he said.
The prime minister said the situation was “very testing” because there was a “swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life”.
He warned illegal immigrants would be removed from the UK “so people know it’s not a safe haven”.
The Refugee Council attacked Mr Cameron’s use of the word “swarm” as “irresponsible, dehumanising language”.
Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham said the comment was “disgraceful”, while Lib Dem leader Tim Farron described it as “deeply alarming” as he was talking about “some of the most desperate people in the world.”
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