France continues to deport Roma

FRANCE defied mounting international criticism of its crackdown on Roma and Gypsy minorities yesterday, sending another planeload back to eastern Europe.

As the French opposition accused President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government of “state racism” and Romania expressed concern, a Blue Air flight left Paris with around 130 Roma on board, headed for Timisoara in western Romania.

Police had escorted three busloads of Roma – men, women and children carrying plastic bags – into Charles de Gaulle airport.

Speaking in Washington, French Immigration Minister Eric Besson said these Roma – who follow 86 who left on Thursday – were leaving France on “a voluntary basis” in exchange for grants of €300 per person.

But any foreign-born Roma caught up in Sarkozy’s crackdown on illegal Gypsy camps who refuses to take a flight will be issued orders to leave France within a month, without the handout.

Romania’s President Traian Basescu said the expulsions showed the need for a European plan to integrate travelling communities, while his Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi has warned against “xenophobic reactions”.

Romanian government sources warned yesterday that if Paris resorted to mass non-voluntary deportations Bucharest would take the matter up with the European Commission and other “competent bodies”.

Yesterday, the Vatican joined the chorus of criticism of the crackdown.

“One cannot generalise and take an entire group of people and kick them out,” said Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the papacy’s Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.

“The mass expulsions of Roma are against European norms,” he said.

Although Romanian and Bulgarian Roma are EU citizens, France has reserved the right until 2014 to bar immigrants from newer member states from the jobs market and to expel them after three months. There are few border controls within the Union, however, and many of those expelled are expected to return.

“Of course I’m thinking about returning to France. Life is better than in Romania,” 26-year-old Ionut Balasz told reporters as he arrived in Romania among the first group.

France expelled around 10,000 Roma to Romania and Bulgaria last year.