Rome: Italian police cleared around a hundred migrants from tents where they were camped along the coastal road near the town of Ventimiglia at the French border at dawn on Wednesday, TV broadcasts showed.

The Facebook page set up by activists for the makeshift camp said some migrants had jumped into the sea in protest, and all of them had retreated to the rocks along the seaside in the standoff with police.

‘The police are blocking the border. We are having breakfast on the rocks. We are not going back,’ read a Facebook post.

Migrants who have been turned back at the French border have gathered along the coast near Ventimiglia since June. Police have repeatedly tried to clear the area.

More than 130,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by boat so far this year, making it a frontline country along with Greece for Europe’s biggest immigration crisis since World War Two. France refuses to let them cross the border because, according to EU law, the migrants are Italy’s responsibility.