Romani people face off riot police during a rally in Montreuil, France. The French government deported hundreds of Roma in August for ‘threatening public order’.
In scenes reminiscent of the Nazi German occupation, French police rounded up almost 1000 Romani people (sometimes called Gypsies) in August and deported them to Romania and Bulgaria.
The mass deportations were foreshadowed by President Nicolas Sarkozy in July in a series of inflammatory speeches in which he accused Romani people of being in an “unacceptable situation of lawlessness” linked to “illicit trafficking, deeply unworthy living conditions and exploitation of children for begging, prostitution or crime”.
Romani camps across France were bulldozed and Roma with Romanian or Bulgarian citizenship were given a choice of “voluntary repatriation” (with a payment of 300 euros to each adult and 100 euros for each child) or being deported for “threatening public order”.
On August 31, an administrative court in Lille blocked the deportation of seven Roma, casting doubt on the legality of the “threatening public order” pretext. Romania and Bulgaria have been European Union members since 2007, giving their citizens the right of free movement between EU countries.
The legality of the deportations has also been questioned by EU and United Nations human rights agencies, as well as Amnesty International.
The Roma are Europe’s largest minority, estimated at between 5 million and 9 million. They have historically faced appalling treatment — subjected to slavery, mass deportations, exclusion and violent pogroms.
