Roma Ultimatum: France Pledges to Comply With EU Migration Rules
The row over the expulsion of Roma this summer prompted Brussels to give France an Oct. 15 deadline to incorporate European law on migration or face legal proceedings. With days to go Paris is complying with the demand.
France is moving to adapt its immigration rules just days before an EU ultimatum runs out that could have dragged Paris before the courts over its controversial expulsion of Roma people.
French Immigration Minister Eric Besson announced this week that the government would be drawing up appropriate legislation this week that would ensure that France was correctly incorporating the EU's 2004 regulations on the freedom of movement into its national legislation. He said the law would go before parliament by December or January.
At the end of July President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a controversial speech that raised the ire of Brussels. He announced that his government would be taking a tougher line on crime and specifically, that he could not accept the presence of illegal encampments of Roma people in France. The authorities have since cleared over 50 camps and repatriated over 1,000 Roma to Romania and Bulgaria, either forcibly or after paying them to leave. According to French immigration rules, people from the two new EU states need work or residency permits if they wish to stay in the country longer than three months. What appeared to be the targeting of a specific ethnic group for expulsion raised a diplomatic storm and France came in for tough criticism, particularly from the European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who compared the deportations to those during World War II.
AWIP: The persecution of Roma—under the Nazis and today