Roma under fire in French election campaign
Another 100 hundred days and the French presidential campaign will come to a head. Never far away from the political disputes among the top contenders is immigration. And the Roma, along with irregular migrants, are once again centre stage.
On Tuesday (10 January), France's interior minister Claude Gueant boasted to reporters France had surpassed its deportation quota for 2010 by 4,000. Around 32,000 people were forced to leave last year. Among them were a couple thousand Roma, rounded up and shipped primarily to Romania and Bulgaria.
The Roma round-up drew fire from the United Nations and EU justice and fundamental rights commissioner Viviane Reding - "Discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin or race has no place in Europe," she said at the time. France, however, is quietly continuing its deportation policy of the disenfranchised EU citizens. President Sarkozy's hard-line against one of Europe's most maltreated minorities appeals to the sensibilities of the country's far right voters.
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