Hundreds of migrants holed up in northern France made another desperate attempt to reach England in the early hours of today, as Britain's prime minister came under fire for controversial comments on the crisis.
France has bolstered its police presence in the northern port city of Calais and migrants made fewer attempts to enter the Eurotunnel than in previous nights.
Police counted several hundred bids to enter the premises of the Eurotunnel terminal in the French port city of Calais, down significantly from the roughly 2,300 attempts registered the night before.
Authorities arrested around 300 of the roughly 800-1,000 migrants estimated to be present at the site overnight.
Eurotunnel did not give precise figures but acknowledged it had been quieter than previous nights.
Traffic through the tunnel, which had been severely disrupted the previous day, was barely affected.
There were no reported delays Thursday on either side of the Channel Tunnel on what is expected to be a busy day in peak European holiday season.
Police intercepted the vast majority of the few hundred migrants who did attempt to penetrate the Eurotunnel premises.
An AFP reporter in Calais watched as dozens of migrants charged past outnumbered police.
Some made it over a barbed wire fence and disappeared into the darkness. But most failed and instead held a sit-in, blocking the passage of shuttles in a vain attempt to get the police to let them pass.
The crisis in Calais has spiked in intensity in the past few days, with upwards of 2,000 desperate bids nightly to sneak into the tunnel to get to Britain -- seen as an "Eldorado" for migrants.
One man died early Wednesday, apparently crushed by a lorry as he tried to make it into the tunnel.
Another migrant, who had suffered head injuries at the weekend, died earlier in the week, authorities announced on Thursday, bringing to 10 the total number of deaths since June.
A teenage Egyptian boy was also fighting for his life after being electrocuted after jumping onto the roof of a Eurostar train bound for London at Paris's central Gare du Nord station, a police source said.
