Ten years ago today, thousands of migrants were thrown out of a shanty town nicknamed The Jungle in the port of Calais.

Their eviction was hailed as a historic moment that would bring an end to the never-ending stream of foreigners determined to cross the 21-mile Channel illegally.

Just after dawn on October 24, 2016, bulldozers moved into the giant 40-acre camp as weeping charity workers watched in despair.

In a brutal operation ordered by the French government, the machines destroyed entire streets of rickety timber huts with corrugated iron roofs and cardboard doors alongside tea houses, tobacco stores, bicycle repair shops, secretive mosques, an immigration lawyer’s office, barbers’ salons, drug dens and even a brothel.

Those who had been living in The Jungle came from the sub-Sahara, North Africa, the Middle East and almost every other nook and cranny in the world. Residents were sent on buses to be resettled throughout France.

The few women and babies among them went to nearby refuge houses, while, as we shall see, many children were brought to Britain in the most controversial evacuation.

I have been reporting on migrants in Calais for some 20 years. But I have never seen more of them here than in recent days – each and every one planning to get to England.

The official tally of those massing at the ferry port and in neighbouring Dunkirk is nearly 4,000, the Home Office’s border security commander, Major General Duncan Capps, said this week.

But this does not account for additional thousands spread along the 240 miles of the French coast from the Belgian border to Cherbourg in Normandy, most of them waiting in informal camps for the wind to die down – as it is expected to do next week – so they can continue their journey by traffickers’ boats.

As for the charities supporting migrants, 21 of them – British and French – staged a commemoration last weekend mourning the dismantling of The Jungle.

There were talks on the merits of open borders, a stated determination to ‘keep alive the memory of a vanished camp’, heartrending testimonies from those who ‘survived’ life there, and a reading from a new photo-reportage book called London Calling that details the ‘daily realities’ of migrants today waiting ‘in the cold and mud’ for a crossing to England.

In driving rain, the charities led two public walks up a steep hill to a viewing area looking down over what was once The Jungle, now turned into a coastal wetland for nature lovers and bird-watchers.

The viewing area is perched on top of a former Second World War coastal artillery battery, built by the Germans. The side of the concrete edifice has been marked by pro-migrant activists with a message in large red letters, visible from a mile away: ‘SAFE TRIP 2’.

Between them, the charities organising the weekend events have a total income of £840,000 a year from private donations, legacies and public funds, a proportion of which is spent on assisting their clients cope in what are now termed ‘living sites’ or temporary camps on the French coast.

The migrant industry is alive and well here. On Monday morning at 8.45am, I stood by the Marcel Doret bus stop in the port’s industrial zone to watch volunteers, many of them students or unemployed Britons, walking to a big warehouse nearby that is home to the thriving French charity L’Auberge des Migrants as well as other like-minded organisations, including Britain’s Refugee Community Kitchen.

The address is kept secret for fear of a backlash from Calais residents, many of whom believe the city has been taken over by those drawn here by the food, water and shelter offered by charities.

Read More: Ten years after I watched the infamous Calais Jungle camp being torn down