Main focus of Friday, July 30, 2010

France wants to deport Roma

Following clashes between the police and a group of Roma, the French government wants to deport Roma who have entered the country illegally or who engage in crime. It also plans to dissolve around 300 illegal Roma settlements. The press condemns the moves as stigma and criticises France and the EU for their failures.

Le Monde - France

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has declared a "war on criminality". But by failing to distinguish between population groups he is stigmatising both the French and the European Roma, warns the daily Le Monde: "Sarkozy's mistake isn't to declare 'war' on criminality at a time when insecurity is on the rise, but to lump everyone together. As the guardian of national and social cohesion, it is not fitting for the head of state to blame the entire population of French Roma for a problem sparked off by just one among them. Of the more than 400,000 travellers counted by census in France, 95% are French and two thirds of them have fixed abodes. As for the Roma ... who form a minority, these are not only migrants from Eastern Europe, particularly Romania and Bulgaria. They form a heterogenous population that has been tossed about from one EU country to the next. ... By confusing things in this way the government is opening the door for chimeras and prejudices." (29/07/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Minorities, » France

Der Standard - Austria

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." (30/07/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Domestic Policy, » Minorities, » France
All available articles from » Adelheid Wölfl

Tages-Anzeiger - Switzerland

President Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement that he intends to take a "hard line" against the Roma in France is a rhetorical manoeuvre designed to distract attention from his own failures, the left-liberal Tages-Anzeiger believes. "Many French people are unlikely to be impressed any more by this martial rhetoric, for most of them are all too aware that since 2002 this president has been almost continuously responsible for internal security in France - first as interior minister and now as head of state. The media always liked to described his style of tackling things head on as 'musclé' - flexing his muscles. He enjoys the loud impact it makes when the police go in and the TV coverage. So when Sarkozy now denounces the deplorable state of affairs and declares an emergency on this front, in the banlieues and among travellers, then he is admitting that his policy has failed. And if the crime statistics really paint such a bad picture as he claims, then his record is bad too. Dreadful in fact. All he can do now is talk, divide and stigmatise. His strategy is easy to see through but carries no guarantee of success." (30/07/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Domestic Policy, » Minorities, » France
All available articles from » Oliver Meiler

Upsala Nya Tidning - Sweden

The liberal daily Upsala Nya Tidning condemns President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to take action against the Roma as a disgrace for the entire European Union: "France was once a country shaped by the ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity. The idea of the EU was governed by the same spirit. When President Nicolas Sarkozy uses the power of the nation to throw certain inhabitants out of the country ... he is damaging the ideals and the development of the EU. ... His policy towards the Roma is the expression of a view of collective blame. Sarkozy is digging in the same soil as [the right-wing extremist Hungarian party] Jobbik. Once again people are being driven out, rejected by a society that accuses them of not wanting to integrate. Instead of fighting discrimination and social destitution, it is people who are being targeted. Europe has never wanted to accept that the Roma have a different way of life. ... So lightly do we treat freedom today, so little is equality there, and so alien are our sisters and brothers to us." (30/07/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Domestic Policy, » France, » Europe

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