Sarkozy launched a new anti-crime initiative yesterday (28 July) targeting the "itinerant population," with a particular emphasis on the Roma community.
Among the measures launched are plans to shut down around 300 illegal camps, expulsion from the country of all Roma from Romania and Bulgaria who have committed public offences, an exchange of policemen between France and Romania, and targeted checks by the fiscal authorities of Roma with expensive SUVs.
The move was announced after some 50 'travelling people' (or gens du voyage as they are called in France) ransacked a police station and other property in Saint Aignan, Central France last week in protest at the death of a 22-year-old who was shot by police.
French human rights group Ligue des Droits de l'Homme issued a statement strongly condemning the stigmatisation of Roma people. It also criticised the "amalgamation" between French gens du voyage, who it said were French citizens living in caravans, and the 15,000 Roma present in France, who mainly originate from Romania and Bulgaria.
When Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, the French government denied their citizens access to France's labour market as a transitory measure, the rights group recalls. Consequently, the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme says Roma immigrants from these two countries are reduced to living in slums as they are unable to work legally.
The French rights group called for the transitory measures to be lifted to grant Roma people access to the labour market, and wants the authorities to make use of existing mechanisms to improve their living conditions.
"It is essential for the government to stop confusing situations and acts with the origins of the persons concerned," the statement concludes.
"Nicolas Sarkozy is taking the initiative for a policy that is racial in character," the organisation Collectif des Associations Tziganes is quoted as claiming by French daily Le Figaro. The NGO warns that it could open a lawsuit against the French president for inciting racial hatred.
At a meeting of EU foreign ministers last Monday, Pierre Lellouche, French secretary of state for European affairs, called for a "European solution" to the Roma problem.
Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi told journalists in Brussels that Lellouche had demonstrated a "firm attitude" in this respect.
Bucharest reacts
"I told [Lellouche] that those nine million Roma of whom he spoke, who live in different EU countries, are European citizens, that their freedom of movement cannot be limited through legal measures, and even less by extra-judicial measures," Baconschi said.
The Romanian minister said he had told Lellouche that the EU could provide help via social inclusion programmes "both in the countries of origin and of destination".
Baconschi said such programmes should be endowed with "sufficient sums […] as to improve the education level in those communities, as well as vocational training [and] housing, in general, to improve their economic conditions".
"You know well that Romania does not accept the labelling as criminals of any ethnic group, nor their stigmatisation. Crimes are committed on an individual basis and the law has to be applied. What we can improve is cooperation between the Romanian and the French police," he concluded.
