The problem is poverty

The French president has drawn much criticism for his announcement to take steps against "criminal" Roma and dissolve 300 camps. Nicolas Sarkozy is ignoring real social questions in the view of the left-liberal daily Der Standard: "We know that security and law and order are priorities for Sarkozy and that is legitimate. But when the French president draws a connection between criminality and 'the behaviour of some members of the Roma and other groups of no fixed abode' he is resorting to a stereotyped image of the Roma as criminals. Instead of identifying the cause of the problem - namely the gap between the average population and the Roma with respect to housing, education and employment - he makes an ethnic issue out of it. ... Sarkozy, whose name, incidentally, also occurs among Central European Roma families, is not facing up to urgent social questions. The same day he orders a bathtub for his president's aeroplane, he ignores in his Roma policy the fact that the causes of criminality and poverty are linked."

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