Sarkozy orders illegal Roma immigrants expelled

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Sarkozy orders illegal Roma immigrants expelled
by CECILE ROUX, JENNY BARCHFIELD
updated 7/28/2010 8:03:11 PM ET

SAINT OUEN, France — French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered authorities to expel Gypsy illegal immigrants and dismantle their camps, amid accusations that his government is acting racist in its treatment of the group known as Roma.

Sarkozy called a government meeting Wednesday after Gypsies clashed with police this month following the shooting death of a youth fleeing officers in the Loire Valley.

Sarkozy said those responsible for the clashes would be "severely punished" and ordered the government to expel all illegal Roma immigrants, almost all of whom have come from eastern Europe.

He pushed for a change in France's immigration law to make such expulsion easier "for reasons of public order." He said illegal Gypsy camps "will be systematically evacuated," calling them sources of trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution.

The language has chilling undertones in a country where authorities rounded up Gypsies and sent them to concentration camps during the Nazi occupation in World War II. Former President Jacques Chirac, the first French leader to acknowledge the state's role in the Holocaust, condemned "the Nazi madness that wanted to eliminate the Gypsies."


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38453904/ns/world_news-europe/

[era veteran]

1. The Roma have no home, just keep on moving to ???

[Dogtown]

2. When Sheriff Joe gets run out of town,

he can find a new job muscling Romas in France...

[totodeinhere]

13. When will that happen? He always wins reelection by a landslide. n/t

[Dogtown]

15. I can't boast of my prognostication skills.

That Warlord won't give up his fief.




Still, anyone that outrageous always runs the risk of it catching up. Let's hope Joe's tumble is long and painful.

[totodeinhere]

17. I hear you. I won't wish physical pain on anyone, but in this case I have to take a deep breath and

tell myself that even in the case of this pathetic little man, I have to maintain my principles.

[SkyDaddy7]

3. I admit I have heard the term "Gypsies" but...

can anyone explain to me exactly who they are? Are they like traveling homeless? Or is there more to their story than that?

[SemperEadem]

4. gypsies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_%28term%29

[secondwind]

5. they are the remnants of the former hungary/yugoslavia, etc. and romania, etc.

I personally have seen them up close. Some of the women are strikingly beautiful.

They are not accustomed to working for anyone. So they teach their children to pickpocket, and I mean TEACH. To the point of abuse. If a child is caught stealing, he/she is more frightened of the reprisals at home (beatings, no food, etc.)

They are abusive to their pets (a common way to "domesticate" a dog is to put him in a small enclosure and not feed him for one week, thereby making it totally complacent and dependent on its "new master").

They generally stake out a spot and live there for months or until they can't stand the stench, garbage, etc. They leave a trail of garbage, sheets, cans, bottles, behind.

They are FANTASTIC at what they do. They would fool anyone.


I've seen the disastrous wreck they leave behind when they "move on", including mattresses, etc.

I once saw a small girl (maybe 8 or so) in Florence crying loudly and being held firmly by two tourists who caught her stealing from their purse. Looking around, I saw the mother a couple of blocks away, peering from around the corner, with a small boy in tow. This is when I learned that the girl was crying because she was afraid of what would happen to her when she was released back to her family.

The Italian authorities try to force Gypsies to educate their children. The children that are sent to school typically only last for a couple of weeks, and never return.

In England, I saw garbage strewn for miles across a lovely pasture.

They were pretty much evident in New York City in the mid-1980's, and I was a victim of their pickpocketing. I felt nothing, but knew exactly when it had happened! Gypsies were responsible for removing an entire tapestry off a wall in NYC and nobody noticed.

This all being said, I have no solutions ......... these people are not wanted anywhere, not even their own countries.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. We passed a couple of camps when I was in Italy and our guides would always warn us

if we approached an area where they were working. However, European governments can act cruelly in their dealings with the Roma.



http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-29/gypsy-scandal-rocks-rome/

[Lightning Count]

9. That is horrible!

:(

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. Their kids are completely disposible to them

Gypsies broke into one of our offices in Europe, bashed a hole in the wall and tossed a bunch of kids in, one of the boys they sent through the wall broke his leg, they left him behind to be found on Monday morning.

Probably the best thing that ever happened to him, he couldn't possibly fare worse in the child welfare system than with his family that threw him through a hole in a wall.

[pinboy3niner]

6. From a Romani website:

Although the Romani people are often referred to as "Gypsies" (and prefer to be called by their more proper designation, Roma), not all "gypsies" or nomadic peoples are Roma. The Roma are descendants of the ancient warrior classes of Northern India, particularly the Punjab, and they are identifiable by their language, religion, and customs, which can be directly linked to those of the Punjabi in northern India.

http://www.romani.org/

[SkyDaddy7]

7. 3 different answers from 3 different people!

I really appreciate the replies but I think I am re confused now than I was before! LOL!

[Igel]

11. Go for a synthesis.

Around 1000 AD, to use a nice round number, something happened to drive a bunch of people from the NW South Asian subcontinent or cause them to be resettled. Punjab? Possibly. Probably not, unless it means "from the Punjab" (there's an ethnicity "Punjabi"). The Roma/Romany/etc. themselves have every interest in making sure their origins are truly noble and wonderful. Possible. Immaterial.

They arrived about the same time as an outbreak of the plague. The plague came from around the same area. Post-hoc thinking made them into the cause of the plague. They arrived through Byzantium and spread from SE Europe. The closest dark-skinned people were Egyptians; they were called Egyptians. Hence "gypsy" and almost all the exonyms given to them.

They didn't assimilate when they reached Europe. They wandered. In fact, they were persecuted and refuse to assimilate. They maintain their distinctiveness, their culture and traditions and their language as well or better than E. European Jews did; Jews assimilated to a larger extent. They stay on the outskirts of society by their own choice as well as by that of society at large, yet they live off society at large. Teasing out case and effect is probably impossible, although saying they're separate by their own choice is anathema--it's blaming the victim, and unless we can view that choice as resulting from some externally-induced cultural pathology you can't say it. The official reason is that they've always been discriminated against and it's racism, taking something from the 18th and 19th centuries and projecting it back in toto to the 12th and 13th.

[Odin2005]

14. Nomadic folks of South Asian origin.

They glorify petty theft and conartistry as part of their culture, hence the negative attitudes towards them.

[Laughing Mirror]

10. This is Sarkozy arousing fear and hate to distract from low ratings and a huge scandal

that has been sweeping his political party, the UMP, this summer, so before going on vacation he takes an ordinary low level crime and uses it to go after the gypsies. In France, they call themselves "voyageurs."

There are in France about 400,000 "gens de voyages" and Roms, 95% of whom are French (some for generations) and only one-third of whom are still nomads. The 5% who are not French but are on French soil come mostly from Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. All of these countries are part of the European Union. So it strains credibility for Sarkozy to brand them "illegal" immigrants marked for deportation, especially when a French law from ten years ago requires any community in France with over 5,000 habitants to provide a space to receive these nomads when they appear. To date, most of these "welcoming" centers have not been built.

Shameful, despicable, but there are those speaking out. SOS-Racisme, the Parti socialiste, l'union des étudiants juifs (Jewish students) de France, and the Union française des associations tsiganes (gypsies) among them.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

12. I don't blame Sarkozy...

I visited France and 2003 and gypsies were a big problem in some of the cities. They'd mob you at the train stations; you'd have to literally hold on to your pockets to keep from being picked. Their body odor has to be one of the worst smells I've ever encountered. Truly disgusting.

[mike r]

18. Hate to say it, but I wouldn't want to live near them either

By the way there are several groups here in the U.S. who specialize in scamming the elderly.