But, less than three weeks after its grand opening, the 400-bed, male-only migrant centre is already at full capacity, and more than 400 asylum hopefuls have been forced to sleep outside, less than 100m from the main entrance. The migrants, who are from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea, and Sudan, have pitched tents along the strip of l’avenue du Président-Wilson, a main road in Seine-Saint-Denis, an impoverished suburb in the north of the French capital. Locals and charity workers, including a handful of former Calais aid workers, however, have denounced the migrants’ “savage” living conditions, and say that they do not understand why officials have not yet set up an emergency shelter to house the hundreds of porte de la Chapelle ‘rejects’.

APF The new makeshift tent camp near Porte de la Chapelle in Paris

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Charlène, a local baker, told the French daily Le Figaro that the new arrivals were “getting younger and younger each day,” and that it was “painful” to see so many youths living in such sordid and inhumane conditions.

This was bound to happen. They sent migrants to reception centres in the middle of nowhere A charity worker

Aid workers also report some of the migrants used to live under the Stalingrad metro in central Paris, a makeshift settlement that was dismantled for the umpteenth time last month. But, more disturbingly, charity workers claim that some of the migrants sleeping rough outside the new shelter previously lived in the now-demolished ‘Jungle’ shanty town, and that some had recently fled the “remote” reception centres they had been sent to under the government’s hotly contested migrant rehousing plan, and returned to Paris. A charity worker said: “This was bound to happen. They sent migrants to reception centres in the middle of nowhere, to towns where they were not wanted and where they were fed pork. It’s no surprise they ran away.”

APF The migrants are from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea and Sudan

Faty, an aid worker who used to work in Stalingrad, said that the new reception centre should be renamed the “camp of shame,” and that migrants were being forced to queue outside in the freezing cold, before being inevitably turned away at the door. She said: “They’re being treated like animals! Every time they move, or sit down because they’re tired of standing, police hit them with their batons.” Faty added that those who had not managed to get into the new centre had fled to Germany in search of a better life. She said: “Some come back, but some are fed up of being turned away and beaten up. One Afghan told me that he would be better off going home. “Some migrants have fled to Germany, where they know they will be fed, housed, and treated with respect.”

Migrants clash with police across Europe Wed, February 15, 2017 Migrants clash with each other in over crowded camps across Europe. Play slideshow EPA 1 of 107 Moroccan Police look at immigrants trying to jump the six-meter-high fence in Ceuta, Spanish enclave on the north of Africa, 09 December 2016.

Rachid, a 38-year-old Afghan, told Le Figaro that he had been in France for just over two weeks, and that he had been unable to apply for asylum because the porte de la Chapelle centre “was always full”. Ali, a 23-year-old refugee, said that he had been turned away from the centre three times, but that he had “nowhere else to go”. Paris officials, however, say that there is “no causal link” between the reception centre’s limited capacity and the new makeshift settlement.

APF The new camp is metres away from an emergency shelter built to help solve the migrant crisis