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Radical groups of hard-left activists have been accused of coordinating several incidents over the past three days - including a French officer being hit by a rock allegedly thrown by a

Sudanese migrant, and a sit-in of 200 refugees who tried to 'walk' to Britain through the Channel Tunnel.  The group's protest lasted into the early hours of the morning after

they had charged past police, chanting: "Open the borders!". On Sunday night migrants made 1,700 attempts to enter the tunnel, and police are convinced that they are being

organised and encouraged by "extreme left elements". Gilles Debove, spokesman for police union Unité SGP-Police FO, said British extremists were among those coordinating violence

against police - so that officers could be depicted as "savages".  He said: “I’ve never seen an organised sit-in before. This is being encouraged not by human traffickers, who wish

to remain discreet, but by extreme Left elements here to manipulate the migrants in the name of their ideal of imposing a country without borders or police.” “Among these activists are

quite a few Britons. For now they have been allowed to act with total impunity. It’s time for a return to the rule of law: they need to be identified and arrested. “They are seeking

opportunities to provoke clashes with the police and violence in the hope that the police will drop their guard (in protecting the site). “They want to depict us as savages. But if there was

any police brutality, it would be all over the news.” The police's criticism is the latest attempt from French authorities to shift the blame for the escalating crisis onto the

British. Last week the mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, slammed the UK's "soft-touch benefits culture for creating an "El Dorado" for desperate refugees – and demanded

the government pay the town a staggering £35 million in compensation.  Around 4,000 migrants from a number of countries – including Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan – are attempting to

reach Britain from Calais. Astonishingly, officials in the crisis-hit town have threatened to punish Britain by opening borders to "let the migrants through".  Deputy mayor

Emmanuel Agius said: "If it continues like that…I believe that at a given moment, we are going to provocative and say 'Let the migrants through', and David Cameron will have

to deal with it".  The French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has also claimed that Britain "must go further" in mobilising resources to resolve the situation – just days

after reaching an agreement with Theresa May.  Despite this – and previous French pledges to do more – it has emerged that authorities are to cut the number of riot police in the area. They

will now be outnumbered 16-1 by migrants.