PARIS, Nov 12: One hundred illegals, most of them Iraqi Kurds, say they’re so bent on making their way to Great Britain that a spokesman has told French authorities they’re “ready to die” rather than be taken away from St Peter and Paul Church, where they’ve spent three nights in Calais, and be forced to apply for refugee status in France.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had originally given the occupants until 3pm on Monday to leave the premises, and on Tuesday evening said that he’d given them another 24 hours to leave the church, otherwise they would be “evacuated” by the several hundred riot police who have surrounded the church.

Meanwhile, in an effort to block access to Calais for other potential illegals bent on making their way to Great Britain, French authorities have sent several dozen security police to the Gare du Nord in Paris, to weed out passengers on the train that goes to Calais, and eventually on to London.