Roma persecution disgraces France
Five years ago in Sofia a dozen European countries launched a Decade
of Roma Inclusion. In a moment of optimism, these states and the World
Bank promised to work toward improving the socioeconomic status and
social inclusion of Europe’s most downtrodden and rejected minority.
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A Roma family wash clothes. AFP |
But halfway through the Roma Decade, things have seriously unravelled.
France, to its enormous discredit and shame, has set about methodically
ridding itself of Roma, who make up much less than one percent of
France’s population. And while France is the most brazen of
Roma-bashers, it is hardly alone. Roma, or Gypsies as they were once
misnamed, have been firebombed in Italy, forcibly removed from their
homes in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, and viciously attacked in
Belfast.
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People belonging to the Roma community shout slogans during
a protest in Sofia, Bulgaria. AFP |
But in France - which has deported 8,000 Roma this year, to Romania
and Bulgaria - the state has taken an overt role in discriminating
against the embattled little minority. According to the French press,
the French Interior Ministry this summer ordered local prefects to
prioritize the evacuation of illegal Roma camps.
The European Union Commissioner for justice and fundamental rights,
Viviane Reding, went so far as to compare France’s treatment of Roma to
Nazi Germany’s persecution of Gypsies. That comparison was overheated
and wrong. But France does seem intent on fanning the flames of
intolerance. Critics presume this is for political gain, since Roma
account for so few residents on French soil.
As citizens mainly of Romania and Bulgaria, Roma have the same rights
as any other citizen of the EU. For a country to target them for removal
as members of a specific ethnic group violates EU law, Reding notes.
France’s actions violate the country’s obligations under international
law to not target any group on the basis of race or ethnicity. Even if
they have outstayed their legal welcome in France, Roma should not be
treated as second-class citizens in 21st-century Europe.
Evidently the French - or at least the French Government - consider
Roma to be an irritating and illegal presence. But they cannot simply be
marched to a border and pushed across.
The Gazette |
