Sara Vidal on the charm of the Roma

The French writer Sara Vidal evokes the charms of the French Roma in the left-liberal daily Libération: "Every morning I witnessed the arrival of princesses. With their long, sparkling skirts, their glistening belts and earrings, their sequined scarves ... talking and laughing together. ... I could guess where they came from, those improvised shanty towns, those squatted houses without water or electricity. And their 'beautiful dresses' as we children said when we dressed up, were all the more magical. ... Where is the criminality, the permanent danger from which our ministers (interior, immigration, justice) must protect us? Ah, of course, the begging! That's not a pretty sight, the begging. Leads to laziness, child trafficking etcetera. The rummaging through the rubbish: making money with copper wire ... That's the limit! ... Criminality: living on private plots without permission. Land abandoned by the French railway company, the no-man's land of closed factories, little wooded areas, empty squatted houses."

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