Paris, (AG/IINA) : A fire has destroyed most of a migrant camp in northern France after fighting between rival groups injured five people, leaving officials scrambling on Tuesday to rehouse around 1,700 people, Reuters reported.

The Grande Synthe camp of tightly-packed wooden cabins, set up just over a year ago, was 70 percent destroyed by the blaze on Monday night after clashes between migrant groups, said Michel Lalande, a top regional official.

Grande Synthe was home to one of the largest groups of migrants on the French coast seeking to reach Britain since the sprawling “Jungle” shanty town outside the nearby port of Calais was shut down last October. Francois Guennoc, vice-president of humanitarian group Auberge des Migrants, blamed tensions in the camp on its over-population. “Since the closure of Calais, the population had risen from about 850 people to 1,700 in recent days,” he told France Inter radio.

The large influx into Europe of migrants fleeing poverty and war elsewhere is a hot issue in France, where the far-right anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen is a frontrunner in the presidential election less than two weeks away.

Le Pen repeated on Tuesday that she would close migrant camps and France’s borders, also drastically cutting migration should she be elected.

Riot police intervened to stop the clashes, but five migrants were hurt in knife fights, regional authorities said. Another migrant was in serious condition after being knocked over by a vehicle on a nearby motorway.

Sixty firefighters fought the blaze but by Tuesday, much of the camp was reduced to heaps of smoking debris. Lalande said it was unlikely that the camp, set up by medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), could be rebuilt.

Authorities were working to find alternative accommodation for the migrants. Around 500 were given shelter in three municipal gymnasiums and the government said it would speed up admission to reception centers for migrants wanting to apply for asylum in France.