A recent survey shows that 4500 among 9000 migrants in Calais jungle wants to claim asylum in France, rather than crossing channel tunnel.
Police and officials have been actively encouraging asylum seekers in and around Calais to apply for asylum in France, insisting that they will get access to the same rights and privileges as in the UK.
And it appears that, amid hugely heightened security measures, many are finally coming around to the idea of starting a new life on the other side of the Channel.
Critics of the Jungle camp have always insisted that the migrants in Calais are in a safe Western country and should apply for asylum there under the EU's Dublin asylum rules.
The rules stipulate that refugees should seek shelter in the first safe member state they reach and cannot pick and choose which EU country to settle in.
According to reports in the French media, it is now so difficult to sneak into Britain that the role of the Jungle camp is now changing from being a waiting room to enter Britain.
Instead, it is apparently turning into a slum where migrants from across the world congregate to live illegally in France, where many can work in the black market.
Of 20 Sudanese migrants interviewed by a newspaper recently just two said they wanted to try and reach Britain, with the other 18 confirming they wanted to live and work in France.
And French newspaper Le Monde also reported a "change in the function of the camp which is no longer the antechamber for Great Britain but a waiting place for migrants, the majority of whom want to stay in France".
The revelations are likely to take the wind out of the sails of French presidential hopeful Nicholas Sarkozy, who has made renegotiating border controls with Britain a key campaign pledge.
Under the current Le Touquet agreement the UK border is in mainland France, meaning police can check passports before people board ships and trains across the Channel.
But Mr Sarkozy was threatening to rip that up and move the frontier back to Dover, making it easier for migrants to make their way across the Channel where they would become the responsibility of British authorities instead.
The revelations that the authorities' message to claim asylum in France is finally getting across will come as a huge relief to British truckers, who face nightly violence at the hands of people smuggling gangs.
They come as papers emerged showing the French government is planning to disperse the asylum seekers in Calais to remote southern parts of the country in a bid to put the end to the migrant chaos.
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