EU Parliament Criticizes Roma Expulsion by France (Deportation of 1,000 ethnic Roma begins)

Roma rights activists during a protest in front of the French embassy in Bucharest, Romania, 06 Sep 2010

The European Parliament has criticized the move by the French government to expel its Roma migrants.

Since August, France has deported about 1,000 ethnic Roma to Romania and Bulgaria. In a resolution passed Thursday, the European Union called for France to bring it to a stop.

European Parliament member for London Jean Lambert says France's Roma policy is discriminatory.

"It is not saying you have committed a crime and therefore you as an individual should be expelled from this country," Lampert. "It really is sort of state discrimination of a group, which is already one of the most disadvantaged in the European Union."

Lampert says it is unusual for the European Parliament to make such an open criticism of a member state, but she says the current situation demanded it.

"Today a majority of the members of the European Union took the position that this was so bad that, yes, they were going to name member states responsible," said Lampert.

The resolution was also critical of the European Commission. It said the Commission, as guardian of the EU treaty, should have made a strong, quick response when the expulsions first started.

Discrimination against national or ethnic groups is forbidden under EU law. The French government says it is not stigmatizing Roma or breaking EU law. It says the deportation is a question of public safety. Roma were recently involved in a few public order incidents, including a riot in southeastern France.

Christian Schweiger from Britain's Durham University says discrimination is an ongoing problem in Europe.

"This has been an ongoing issue," said Schweiger. "Racial division, religious division has been an issue and countries very often do not abide by these rules."

The resolution passed by the European Parliament also criticized the treatment of Roma by other member states. This week, Italian authorities dismantled illegal Roma camps around Milan and Rome.

According to the American Spectator:

The expulsions from France, which by the end of August had resulted in 151 obligatory (”de manière contrainte”) and 828 voluntary (”de manière volontaire”) repatriations to Bulgaria and Romania, have overshadowed such progress.

Concerns voiced by Roma groups, certain Bulgarian and Romanian politicians, the United Nations, and the European Union have only prompted France to double down on its method of controlling the gens du voyage and their perceived “menace à l’ordre public.” France’s Immigration Minister, Eric Bresson, has hinted at further measures to crack down on the clandestine immigration of Roma, particular at the French border, while Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux continues to insist that “the objective announced by the president of the republic, that half our country’s illegal camps will be dismantled in three months, will be met.

The French government has roundly rejected any suggestion that these expulsions in any way resemble the infamous rafles, or round-ups, of the Second World War. Deputy Jean-Pierre Grand responded to critics (including Catholic archbishops and opposition politicians) thusly: “Persons are arrested, their identities are verified, and they are offered money to return to their homeland; I would like for someone to explain the connection to the roundups of the Second World War”.

Pierre Lellouche has proven more defiant still, insisting that the expulsions were designed to guarantee the “first of human rights, which is the right to safety.

With crimes committed by Romanians (many of whom are Roma) reported to have increased by 259 percent in Paris over the last eighteen months, with some one in five Parisian thefts perpetrated by a Romanian, and with constant strains on the welfare system exacerbated by the presence of illegal aliens, it was inevitable that the French government would step up measures against unlawfully-present Roma and their camps, brooking no opposition in the process. And it is no coincidence that the crackdown has occurred alongside an overall government-led “debate on national identity” that has been taking place in France over recent months. (That the Roma are paying something of a price for Gallic resentment of other immigrant communities that have likewise yet to fully assimilate cannot be discounted either.) The French government has even raised the possibility of contesting Romanian and Bulgarian entry into the Schengen (border-free) European zone in March of 2011 due to the regular egress of Roma from those countries. Thus the Roma controversy in France figures to have more than merely domestic political ramifications.

Not sure if Romania considers the Roma’s to be their own ethnic wise.

According to Wikipedia:

Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Romanies originated from the Indian subcontinent, emigrating from India towards the northwest no earlier than the 11th century.

The Romani are generally believed to have originated in central India, possibly in the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, migrating to northwest India (the Punjab region) around 250 BC. In the centuries spent here, there may have been close interaction with such established groups as the Rajputs and the Jats. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is believed to have occurred between AD 500 and AD 1000. Contemporary populations sometimes suggested as sharing a close relationship to the Romani are the Dom people of Central Asia and the Banjara of India.

RE:
If the European Parliament is against this, then it’s my guess that the majority of the people are for it.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/297058

TITLE: Roma expulsions: The total lack of French political opposition.

EXCERPT:

With national protests against the expulsion of Roma today one would think that the President’s law and order policies were unpopular, But they are not. On the contrary, polls consistently show public support for the crackdown. Why is that?

France is buzzing today, with the President’s enemies preparing for nationwide protest marches against the government’s hard-line law and order onslaught in general, and the expulsion of Roma in particular. This legislative fever has resulted in 6 months’ worth of laws, all of which were introduced with just one aim in mind. To crack down on crime and illegal immigration.

The banning of the burqa, much tougher policing in areas where crime is high, stricter immigration laws, the summary expulsion of immigrants without the correct papers or a job, stripping some immigrants of French nationalities for certain crimes, stricter sentencing, you name it, he’s done it, and more.

The “more” is the latest batch of measures which were sparked off by violent demonstrations by a small number of France’s Roma following the death of one of them, a crime suspect killed by police. The investigation into that incident is ongoing.

In a nutshell, Roma are being deported in large numbers, their camps are being dismantled and the present situation has attracted the attention of the world’s media.

All this highly controversial legislation should have course given the largest opposition party in France, the Socialists, a long-awaited opportunity to unite, bitterly divided as they have been over the last ten years by almost fatal internal battles and severely handicapped by a total lack of concrete alternative propositions to those of the last two presidents, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

The French Socialist party and its senior representatives should have been at the vanguard of today’s protests, but they are not. On the contrary, they are conspicuous by their minimal presence, and Socialist leader Martine Aubry is nowhere to be seen. They have left the field to a rag-taggle bunch of largely unknown Ecologists, trade union representatives and homeless associations, with a couple of human rights organizations thrown in.

But the Socialists are absent for a reason, and that reason is precisely why the demonstrations today, although they promise to be noisy and well-covered by the press, will have almost no effect on the government’s policies.

And why is that? Because the Socialists and other opposition parties know that they have, incredibly, absolutely no alternatives to Sarkozy’s policies and that they have never in their 100-year history lifted a finger to help the Roma in this country. In other words, they are part of the problem.

They seem to have forgotten why Nicolas Sarkozy was elected. Sarkozy’s election platform was based on promises of action to reform education, pensions, and to tackle illegal immigration and crime. He was elected largely because of the total inability of his opponent – the hapless Ségolène Royal – to offer the French anything concrete. Her stated policy was “Anyone but Sarkozy.” No wonder she was soundly beaten. The French wanted action, not more Socialist criticism without proposition.

I personally wish there were an easier and more “humane” ( note the quotes ) solution. But putting myself in the place of the French people, I can’t find one other than this.

Maybe someone reading this thread has a better solution... I am all ears.

The history is more complicated than a comparison with Mexicans sneaking in across our border.

From Wikipedia:

While the South Asian origin of the Romani people has been long considered a certitude, the exact South Asian group from whom the Romanies have descended has been a matter of debate. The recent discovery of the "Jat mutation" that causes a type of glaucoma in Romani populations suggests that the Romani people are the descendants of the Jat people found in Northern India and Pakistan.

In 1322, a Franciscan monk named Symon Semeonis described people resembling these atsinganoi living in Crete and, in 1350, Ludolphus of Sudheim mentioned a similar people with a unique language whom he called Mandapolos, a word which some theorize was possibly derived from the Greek word mantes (meaning prophet or fortune teller).

Around 1360, the Romani established an independent fiefdom (called the Feudum Acinganorum) in Corfu; it became "a settled community and an important and established part of the economy."

By the 14th century, the Romanies had reached the Balkans; by 1424, Germany; and by the 16th century, Scotland and Sweden. Some Romanies migrated from Persia through North Africa, reaching the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. The two currents met in France.

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