The Roma have no lobby

France has announced it will deport roughly 700 Roma by the end of August. The deportations to Romania and Bulgaria, among other countries, are to begin on Thursday, and French security forces have started disbanding illegal Roma settlements. The Roma are being used as scapegoats, writes the weekly Dilema Veche: "France has not been exactly successful in introducing programmes for disadvantaged minorities. That is clear every time French citizens of Arab origin start setting cars on fire in the suburbs of Paris. ... True, the Romanian Gypsies in France impose an added burden on French taxpayers. But the ad hoc Gypsy camps are not responsible for the budgetary chaos that now plagues almost all EU governments. For that reason it is all too easy simply to lay the blame on the Roma. The poor wretches are too uneducated and entirely lacking in credibility for anyone to believe their arguments."

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