Posing by the al fresco dining table, Alpha from Mauritania is clearly proud of his new home.

Handbuilt from scraps of wood and covered in plastic sheeting, it boasts a thatched roof – just like his former house back in his north African homeland.

Inside his French home are two leather sofas, his guitar and bed. Outside there’s a shed for his chickens, Lily and Jean.

Just round the corner two of his neighbours, from Libya, are putting the finishing touches to their two-storey wooden hut, complete with an elevated veranda to take in the surrounding view.

Welcome to the migrants’ new home from home in the sand dunes on the outskirts of Calais.

The ‘town’ – estimated population 4,000 – already boasts three shops, selling essentials such as tinned food, fizzy drinks and washing up liquid (and with someone else’s supermarket trolleys outside).

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Alpha from Mauritania is clearly proud of his new home. Handbuilt from scraps of wood and covered in plastic sheeting, it boasts a thatched roof – just like his former house back in his north African homeland

Two mosques have been built and a 30ft church is under construction. There are dozens more wooden houses, some with generators and chimneys. With a nod to European health and safety regulations, one house even has a fire extinguisher outside.

They have set up toilet blocks and communal areas and the camp, also made up of dozens of tents, now covers vast swathes of wasteland, four miles from the centre of Calais.

The migrants moved to the dunes after they were kicked out of their former camp, called the Jungle. State authorities pushed them away from the city to the wasteland next to the Jules Ferry centre, which was renovated with a £3million EU grant to shelter women migrants. It also now provides food and shower facilities for the hundreds of men who have set up camp nearby.

The new town, recently described by aid workers as ‘the worst in Europe – if not the world’, is seen as a ‘tolerated zone’ by the French authorities.

And many of its inhabitants remain desperate to get to Britain by stowing away in the backs of lorries or by any means they can.

In one of the latest ruses, French families are being recruited to smuggle migrants across the Channel in hire cars just a mile away. The men and women, usually unemployed, are being recruited to act as ‘mules’ ferrying people to Britain because they are less likely to attract suspicion at the port.

Some are even taking their children in the cars to divert attention away from their illegal cargo, often hidden under blankets, a French prosecutor said.

A room with a view: A Lybian migrant building his own two-storey home

Marie-Helene Calonne told La Croix newspaper: ‘The cleverest rent cars and never use their own cars to prevent the authorities confiscating their vehicle if they are caught. It is an expanding market with more and more migrants arriving.’ In the past year 78 ‘mules’ involved in 38 cases have been arrested, police figures show.

During the same period French border police aided by British colleagues in Calais arrested more than 700 individuals who ‘assisted’ migrants to cross the Channel.

Yesterday the Daily Mail reported how Calais migrants are becoming ever more brazen in their attempts to cross the Channel.

This week, in broad daylight, some were filmed trying to board lorries queuing to get into the port. Previously they would wait until darkness to try to stow themselves away.

Some German haulage firms are now said to be boycotting Britain altogether as a result of such activities. The Road Haulage Association said some smaller firms had decided not to travel through Calais because they could not risk losing a driver or a lorry as police in the town struggle to cope with the increasing number of migrants desperate to reach the UK.

Between 50 and 150 migrants are said to be arriving in Calais every day as increasing numbers make their way to Europe across the Mediterranean.

Hundreds have died in recent months trying to cross the sea. The Royal Navy is assisting in rescue operations and on Wednesday HMS Bulwark saved more than 400 people found 40 miles from the Libyan coast in inflatable boats.

French border police have arrested hundreds of African migrants travelling north from Italy towards Calais in the past week.

Home from home: Alpha in his new house in Calais with sofas and guitars, relaxes in the French shanty town

Last week police in Calais warned they were being overrun by ‘waves of migrants’ trying to stow away on lorries.

And yesterday one man at the new camp admitted he had tried more than 100 times in recent weeks to hide on a lorry heading to Britain. He spoke as he joined hundreds of others who were queuing for food at an official migrant centre.

Official figures put the number of migrants living rough in Calais at around 2,000 – but migrants themselves this week claimed it was nearer to 4,000.

The majority who live in the camps walk to the main road each day where they try to get on lorries bound for Britain.

For others, however, the situation is hopeless, and they plan to stay in France until they get their papers there. This is because rules state that asylum seekers must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive at.

A migrant called Solomon, from Sudan, said he had no choice but to live in the squalid conditions in Calais for more than a year because his fingerprints had been taken when he arrived by boat in Italy. It means that if he made it to Britain, he would more than likely be sent back to Italy.

The ‘town’ – estimated population 4,000 – already boasts three shops, selling essentials such as tinned food, fizzy drinks and washing up liquid (and with someone else’s supermarket trolleys outside)

The migrants moved to the dunes after they were kicked out of their former camp, called the Jungle. State authorities pushed them away from the city to the wasteland next to the Jules Ferry centre

‘There is nothing I can do. I have no choice, I cannot go back to Sudan, I cannot go to the UK, I have to live here, in this,’ he said, gesturing around him.

The French have increased police numbers at Calais and put up huge fences but many migrants still manage to make it to Britain. Thirteen were arrested after fleeing from a lorry in the Forest of Dean on Wednesday.

The Calais mayor has called for help from the British Government in dealing with the problem, blaming the UK’s lax employment laws and ‘cushy’ benefits system.

n A migrant in Calais nearly died after trying to sneak into Britain hidden in a lorryload of manure.

Border police spotted the 25-year-old Eritrean neck-deep in the horse and sheep manure in a lorry parked near the Channel Tunnel shuttle terminal.

A police spokesman said: ‘It was like quicksand. Every time he moved, he sank a bit deeper.’