“A More Flexible Economy”: What Migrants Want – And What’s Good for People Already There

A large number of migrants are camping out in and around Calais, in northern France on the English Channel.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

“By the end of the year – and as early as this month – [French President François] Hollande plans to transfer thousands of migrants from the blighted port to shelters in far-flung corners of France.

The goal is to dismantle the Jungle, a sprawling migrant camp skirting the port that has become a symbol of Europe’s failure to manage the flow of migrants across its borders from conflict zones in Syria, Afghanistan and beyond.”

What I find most interesting, however, is why the migrants are clustering in Calais.  Back to The Wall Street Journal:

“France has offered asylum to many of the refugees in the camp over the past year, but many have refused, clinging to their dreams of reaching the U.K., where family and a more flexible economy awaits.” 

Read the end of that sentence again.  The migrants want to go to the U.K., where “a more flexible economy awaits.”  In other words, they want to go where they can get a job and get ahead.  And they think they can do that in the U.K. because it has “a more flexible economy.”

“A more flexible economy.”  Something governments should keep in mind.