Days of misery have ended for lorry drivers who languished in miles of queues in southern England following strike action in France by ferry workers.

Kent Police announced that all phases of Operation Stack - where freight traffic is queued on sections of the M20 - have now been lifted.

A police spokesman said: "There may still be residual delays in the area while the road network returns to normal."

More than 3,000 hauliers were parked on the M20 after the closure of the Port of Calais earlier this week crippled Channel sailings.

The chaos was sparked after MyFerryLink workers started a wildcat strike on Monday in protest at expected job cuts in the French port city.

The Port of Dover said tonight that the Port of Calais was now operating two berths, allowing P&O Ferries to run a full cross-Channel service.

"We sincerely regret the impact to the travelling public, freight operators and the Dover community of a situation that has been beyond our control," a Port of Dover spokesman said.

The problems came amid a migrant crisis in Calais, where around 3,000 people displaced from countries including Eritrea, Syria and Afghanistan have set up camp near the port.

Migrants have been taking advantage of slow-moving and queuing traffic by trying to board UK-bound vehicles, forcing some drivers to take long detours to skip Calais altogether.

Home Secretary Theresa May and her French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve this week agreed to increase the joint intervention fund to improve security around the port and the Channel Tunnel.

The economic cost of the industrial action was laid bare by Tim Waggott, chief executive of the Port of Dover, who said the problems cost the UK economy £250 million a day.

The UK's Road Haulage Association chief executive Richard Burnett said it was "absolute mayhem", and called on the French and British governments to act.

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