Vatican joins protests as France expels Gypsies [ flights followed a roundup of illegal immigrants]

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7290 ^ | Aug 21 2010 | Catholic culture.org

[NoLibZone]

The Vatican has joined in criticism of the French government for a campaign to round up and deport Gypsies living illegally in the country.

French immigration authorities put 130 members of the Gypsy, or “Roma,” minority on a plane to Romania on August 19. The previous day, another 86 had left. While French officials say that the departures are voluntary, they have threatened to expel any Roma people who decline to leave voluntarily. The flights followed a roundup of illegal immigrants living in Gypsy camps.

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Migrants, said that it was “against European norms” to expel members of a particular minority group. “One cannot generalize and take an entire group of people and kick them out,” he argued.

Romania’s President Traian Basescu has also protested the French policy, and said he would bring his argument against the “xenophobic” campaign to the European Commission.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

[Wuli]

“Thanks again for the links. This particular society is not one I know that much about (except for the obvious stereotypes and such).”

Ditto - on my part too, until this thread caused me to go search for some greater understanding.

The history, and the length of it - centuries, and the result of it:

(EU “citizen” to Gypsy: You are not “part of us” and so you cannot be “part of us”; Gypsy to EU citizen: You have always rejected me, and you will always reject me, so I don’t want to be your “citizen”)

seems like it would be a very difficult social and political catch-22 to change; for both sides.

I am guessing that one of the easiest ways it has changed, throughout the centuries, maybe, is when a Gypsy married an “outsider”, left the Gypsy clan, family and social life and that Gypsies children became part of “regular” society.