Paris mayor inaugurates new reception center for migrants

PARIS – Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has inaugurated a new migrant reception center which she hopes will prevent migrants from camping in squalid places in the city, and ease tensions in affected neighborhoods.

The center opened Tuesday in a northern district of Paris and has a maximum capacity for 400 people. More than 18,000 migrants have been removed since June 2015 from Paris streets and parks and given shelter.

Earlier this month, French authorities cleared a makeshift camp near the Stalingrad metro station where more than 3,000 people camped in tents. The operation followed the relocation of nearly 7,000 people from a camp in Calais on the French side of the English Channel which was called "the jungle" by migrants.