Illegal camps demolished in France

I do not see the problem. I cannot see (for once) why Sarkozy is being so severely criticised for sending those immigrants convicted of a crime back from whence they came. When you are in a foreign country (or even your own), you must tow the line. There is a social code, a civic duty to abide by the rules. If you break the law, you get kicked out. That's the way it goes. You arrive, you respect your environment and the people within it, you work and you pay your taxes. As an immigrant myself, I know what it means to have to adapt to another country and its values.... "our way or the highway"... for these 'fellonistes', they were warned and now it looks like the highway. It doesn't matter where they come from and their ethnicity should not even be mentioned for it is unimportant. What is important is that they respect and live by the laws of their host country which has taken them in (or "tolerated" them in illegality). That's what exile is all about, right? Do not imagine for a second that I am a Sarkoziste. Far from it. But in this case, if those being sent home are perpetrators of crimes or known trouble-makers, then I cannot condemn the action.

This from yesterday's HotNews:

France shut down 40 illegal camps of gypsie immigrants

de A.C. HotNews.ro Joi, 12 august 2010, 20:23 English | Regional Europe

French authorities closed in the last two weeks over 40 illegal camps of gypsie immigrants, AFP informed, quoting French Interior minister Brice Hortefeux. On July 28, French authorities announced that they will demolish all illegal camps and will expel gypsies from other EU states who commit fellonies. Just several days ago, Sarkozy called a special reunion in which he talked about the security problem created by minorities.

Hortefeux declared that about 700 people were evacuated from the camps and will be sent to their countries, Romania and Bulgaria in special charter airplanes. French interior minister declared that about 300 camps illegally contructed by gypsies will be demolished and foreign gypsies committing fellonies will be expelled immediately to their country.

The measure is part of a war against criminality announced by Sarkozy. AFP quotes a survey concluding that 79% of the respondents approved the measures taken by authorities. On Tursday, France needs to answer to critiques put forward by UN experts, part of the anti-discrimination committee who denounced the actions of the government.

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This from today's Bloomberg:

Expulsions of Illegal Roma Garner Approval From Public in Sarkozy's France

By Gregory Viscusi - Aug 13, 2010

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, speaks during a news conference at the German federal chancellory, in Berlin. Photographer: Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg

Marka, who lives in a wooden shack with her husband in a camp holding about 300 Roma built next to a rail yard on the outskirts of Paris, says she feels every day could be their last one there.

The 17-year-old, who earns about 10 euros ($12.9) a day doing skits for Paris tourists, is among gypsies targeted by the French government for expulsion. President Nicolas Sarkozy, responding to a spate of violent crimes, last month ordered that 300 illegal Roma camps be dismantled and residents expelled.

For Sarkozy, who faces re-election in 2012, the evictions are among a series of steps -- including stripping naturalized citizens of their French citizenship if they commit serious crimes and jailing parents of juvenile delinquents -- to show he’s tough on crime. Politically, the moves are paying off as polls show the French support the measures, giving Sarkozy a bump up from record-low approval ratings.

“Sarkozy is surfing a radicalization of public opinion on the question of security and immigration,” said Laurent Dubois, a professor at Paris’s Institute of Political Studies. “Sarkozy’s declarations are a series of landmines that he’s slipped in under the summer sand. It helps remobilize the right, while at the same time creating divisions on the left.”

Police today evacuated 1,000 people in 274 caravans in Anglet, in southwestern France, LCI Television said. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said yesterday that more than 40 camps have been dismantled in the last 15 days and 700 people are being sent back to Bulgaria and Romania on chartered flights.

Public Support

The president’s popularity ratings are recovering, according to a CSA poll published in Le Parisien on Aug. 7. People who said they have confidence in Sarkozy rose to 34 percent in August from a record low of 32 percent in July. The poll questioned 1,002 people. No margin of error was given.

An Ifop poll published Aug. 6 in pro-government newspaper Le Figaro said 79 percent were in favor of dismantling gypsy camps. Between 70 and 80 percent favor taking citizenship away from foreign-born criminals. The poll questioned 1,003 people between Aug. 3 and 5. No margin of error was given.

In a poll by CSA for Communist Party newspaper Humanite, 62 percent said dismantling the camps is “necessary” and 57 percent said the same for taking away citizenship. The poll questioned 1,011 people Aug. 4-5. No margin of error was given.

The opposition Socialist Party is struggling to come up with a response.

‘Ill at Ease’

“Among voters, security is an issue where there is a lot of common ground across the political spectrum,” said Jean- Daniel Levy, head of the political department at CSA. “Many of the voters on the left don’t think the Socialist leadership is adequately tough on questions of security.”

Martine Aubry, the head of the Socialist Party, the country’s main opposition, issued a communiqué Aug. 1 that denounced Sarkozy for “sliding into anti-republican ideas that hurt France and its values.” She didn’t directly mention the proposals, and hasn’t spoken publicly.

“It’s a subject that Socialists are ill at ease about,” Pierre Moscovici, a former Socialist minister and a member of parliament, said in an Aug. 10 interview with RTL radio. “We have to get back to talking about social issues, about pensions, jobs, taxes, and not fall for this bait.”

Sarkozy’s measures came after itinerant workers in central France burned cars and a police station July 17 following the death in a police shooting of one of them -- a 22-year-old who didn’t stop his car during a night-time identity check.

Pantin Camp

The rioters belonged to a 400,000-strong community of French citizens without fixed addresses who do itinerant work. In contrast, the Roma number about 15,000 in France and are recent arrivals from Bulgaria and Romania. Aid groups criticized Sarkozy for lumping together the two unconnected communities.

While Romania joined the European Union in 2007, Romanians need permits to live and work in France until 2014. There’s no etymological link between Roma, or the people known as gypsies, and Romania, the country.

Sarkozy’s proposals were criticized yesterday at a session of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva. The French foreign ministry said in a statement that it distinguishes between itinerant workers and gypsies, and that the Roma can reside in France as long as they respect local laws.

At the rail yard camp in the Paris suburb of Pantin, Marka lives in fear of expulsion. Marka, who wouldn’t give her last name, is a Romanian citizen who’s been in France “off and on” for 10 years. Most of the inhabitants of her camp arrived from Romania in the past six months and don’t speak French, she said.

‘Want to Stay’

Two rows of trailers and shacks face each other, with trash piled up at the entrance. There’s no running water, although the town of Pantin has installed eight chemical toilets. The men try to make money by collecting scrap metal, while the women beg. Most of the children don’t go to school.

The Pantin camp is illegal and is slated for destruction because the rail yard is due to be developed, said Philippe Navarro, chief of staff at the Pantin mayor’s office.

Inhabitants of the camp say they can make more money and are treated better in France than they would be in Romania. They say they won’t obey orders to leave the country.

In the neighboring Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, residents of a 10-year-old gypsy camp were evacuated by the police last month. This week, they were offered four empty lots by the Communist Party mayor.

On a recent day, men were building shacks there, using wood they’d found. Most of them speak French, and kids at the camp go to school, says Miahai Stefan, 30, a scrap-metal collector.

“We want to stay here,” he said. “We want a place to live, to work, and to send our kids to school.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Grenoble, France, at gviscusi@bloomberg.net.

Sarah's note: I should mention here that the Socialist MP Pierre Moscovici is of Roumanian origin. His father, Serge Moscovici, the founder of social European psychology, was born 1925 in Braila. Pierre Moscovici is well known for his role as president of the parliamentary enquiry commission regarding the liberation of imprisoned Bulgarian nurses in Libya, 2007, particularlmy when he publically asked Sarkozy's then-wife, Cecilia, to explain her rôle in the affair. 

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This from The Telegraph dated 6th August:

Sarkozy’s crackdown on gipsies begins

French police forcibly moved more than 100 gipsies from an illegal squatter camp as the authorities launched a campaign ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy to clear up encampments.

Published: 8:10PM BST 06 Aug 2010

Gipsies, who have just been evicted, talk to a policeman in Saint-Etienne. Photo: AFP/GETTY

Officers moved in before dawn to seal off the squatter camp, where the local authorities had installed water standpipes and chemical lavatories near the central city of Saint Etienne. The operation took several hours.

The French president announced tough new security measures last month that included plans to dismantle 300 unauthorised camps in three months.

In addition to the destruction of camps, a squad of tax inspectors has been set up to target hidden wealth in the community. Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister, has raised suspicions over the owners of “caravans pulled by certain powerful cars”.

Shortly after launching his measures aimed at gipsies, Mr Sarkozy announced plans to target members of other minority groups, promising to strip French nationality from certain categories of foreign-born criminals.

Opinion polls this week showed that 79 per cent of voters approved of measures to dismantle the camps. Similar majorities backed other aspects of his law and order policy.

Mr Sarkozy has pledged that those foreign gipsies who had committed crimes would be deported to their countries of origin - mainly Romania.

There are estimated to be 15,000 gipsies and Roma of Eastern European origin in France. Some live in authorised encampments, but many are in squatter camps or abandoned buildings.

Last month, a group of gipsies rioted after one of their number was shot dead by police during a car chase in Saint-Aignan, central France.

Mr Sarkozy is likely to bolster his standing in the opinion polls by taking a tough stance on minorities. The Socialist opposition party has been cautious about opposing the measures. ______________________________________________________________________

See also articles from the Russian newspaper Pravda, Google and The Guardian.

Comments

[clau2002]

If you ceck you will be surprised to find out that is ilegal only for minors not for adults.Exploiting minors is a penal felony wich means jail time.Enforce the law and they will go out of France without the need of paying(bribing)them to do so.As long the cops will get their cut the gyies will be on the streets.For three months thei need no papers and even after if they proove they have money in an bank account they can stay.The bosses of their clans always take care of that.A lot of lawyers make good money from them,FACT!!!

[sairj]

It's not legal in France - they are arrested for it all the time, but the police can't keep up with them... They are too numerous and the problem has got out of hand. Voilà why sarkozy is putting into place the measures he has begun - and amongst a great deal of criticism, too, I might add. Those from Romania and Bulgaria are not entitled to stay in France without papers (to be reviewed in 2014), so they are thrown out for that, too.

[clau2002]

I thought that in France when a person(french citizen or guest) breakes the law,gets a fair trial and if found guilty is condemned and put in jail.After that the foreign national is send to his country of origin.Anyway the point is that the law is not enforced thats why now there are all those camps.As long as begging will be LEGAL in France the gypsies will keep returnig becouse is much more profitable to do it in France than in Romania.

[Emil]

http://www.lepost.fr/article/2010/08/12/2182432_nelson-monfort-le-blagueur-avec-les-roumains-il-faut-faire-attention.html

what a nice guy... hope he gets smashed by a truck. Romanian truck.