Iraqi families trudge through the mud in the freezing cold to become the first to live in France's new wooden hut migrant shelters

The first families to live in a new £2.4million migrant camp of wooden shelters near Dunkirk have arrived

They have been photographed making their way through muddy conditions towards their new homes

Built by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the campsite features 200 heated wooden huts and bathrooms

Meanwhile, second week of demolition work of the nearby 'Jungle' in Calais has today continued

Families of Iraqi Kurds have become the first to arrive in France's new camp of wooden shelters built for £2.4million.

The new residents were photographed tramping through mud as they made their way to the camp from another site nearby where 1,000 people have been living in miserable conditions.

Built by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in opposition to the French government, the 200 heated wooden cabins also feature proper toilets and showers.

About 150 people abandoned the camp in Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk, to move Monday to wooden sheds with access to toilets and electricity built nearby by Doctors Without Borders, spokesman Samuel Hanryon said.

Families pushed luggage and piled bags on buses taking them across town to the new site. The aid group, known by its French acronym MSF, hopes hundreds more will join them in the coming days.

The move is part of efforts to improve conditions for thousands of migrants who have converged on northern France amid Europe's migrant crisis.

A few police guarded the area but did not take part in Monday's move.

In Calais, authorities are gradually evicting residents of part of the 'jungle' camp and trying to get them to seek asylum in France or move to cleaner container facilities. A few Calais migrants came to the new MSF site Monday, Hanryon said.

Local mayor Damien Careme, who fought a battle with the authorities over its construction, said: 'It's a great day for human solidarity.

'I've overcome a failure of the state,' he said, adding that he could no longer stand the sight of around 75 children living in the original camp.

The move has frustrated the government which has been trying to move refugees away from the northern coast and into centres where their movement is more controlled.

The government's representative in northern France, Jean-Francois Cordet, said last month: 'The government's policy is not to reconstitute a camp at Grande-Synthe, but to make it go away.'

They are located in Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk, and were constructed with the help of the local town hall.

The 3.1 million euro ($3.4 million) migrant accommodation is thought to be the first in France to meet international standards, and MSF said they hoped soon to have 375 cabins, catering for 2,500 people.

'It's a great day for human solidarity,' said local mayor Damien Careme, who fought a battle with the authorities.

'I've overcome a failure of the state,' he said, adding that he could no longer stand the sight of around 75 children living in the original camp.

The move has frustrated the government which has been trying to move refugees away from the northern coast and into centres where their movement is more controlled.

The government's representative in northern France, Jean-Francois Cordet, said last month: 'The government's policy is not to reconstitute a camp at Grande-Synthe, but to make it go away.

Meanwhile, authorities today began a second week of demolition at the region's largest refugee camp, nicknamed the 'Jungle', in nearby Calais.

Thousands of migrants have been living in the 'Jungle' and other smaller camps along the northern coast, desperate to reach Britain where many have family or community ties and see better hopes of gaining employment or education.

Most have turned down offers from the French government to move into heated containers alongside the 'Jungle', or into accommodation centres elsewhere in France, fearing doing so would end their dreams of reaching Britain.

Unlike these alternatives, the new camp at Grande-Synthe will not restrict the movement of migrants and refugees, MSF said.

In Calais, a group of children tried to offer white roses to the line of riot police holding back migrants and volunteers as workers resumed the dismantling of makeshift shelters in the Calais camp.

Nine Iranians who last week stitched their mouths shut in protest at the demolition, said they were carrying out a hunger strike.

Some five acres of the 'Jungle' were destroyed last week, and authorities said it could take a month or more to demolish the southern half of the camp.

Local authorities say there were between 800 and 1,000 migrants living in the southern half, while aid groups say there were around 3,500.

Meanwhile UK Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted there is 'no prospect' of Britain joining a common EU asylum system as officials in Brussels continued to grapple with the chaos caused by the huge influx into the continent.

The Financial Times reported that the European Commission was preparing to bring forward proposals at a further EU summit later this month to centralise control of asylum claims.

It would mean replacing the current Dublin regulation under which refugees have to claim asylum in the first country they arrive in.

That puts pressure on countries such as Greece and Italy - where many of the migrants from Syria and north Africa first set foot in the EU - while protecting those further away.

However Mr Cameron said that Britain's opt-out from the Schengen agreement meant that it would be unaffected by any changes.

'We have an absolutely rock-solid opt-out from these things so there is no prospect of Britain joining a common asylum process in Europe,' he told reporters.

'We will have our own asylum approach, our own way of doing things, keeping our borders. It underlines the best of both worlds, the special status that we have.

The UK has announced plans to deploy a Royal Navy ship to join a Nato operation to tackle people smugglers bringing migrants across the Aegean Sea.

France's government says a hotline is going to be set up to help local businesses in Calais that are suffering amid the migrant crisis.

About 500 Calais residents and merchants have demonstrated on the streets of Paris around the Elysee Palace to draw the attention to their economic difficulties.

The new hotline will help small business owners to get tax relief.

Thousands of migrants are camped out in the Calais region, hoping to sneak across the English Channel to Britain. The protesters claim that the situation has badly damaged local businesses' activity.