Kumaran Ira

Jeune Rom lynché: la presse anglaise publie deux photos
interdites en France. (Le Monde/The Telegraph)

A 16-year-old Roma teenager, Darius, was abducted and savagely beaten by a lynch mob last Friday at the Cité des Poètes estate in a poor northern suburb of Paris, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. As of this writing, he is still in a coma, fighting for his life in a Paris hospital after suffering multiple skull fractures.

The assault on Darius is an indictment of French society, and in particular of the persecution of the Roma by the Socialist Party (PS) government, whose officials are ordering police to break up Roma encampments and have called for all Roma to leave France. The government and the police covered up the lynching for four days, finally breaking the news on Tuesday.

Julie Launois-Flacelière, the lawyer retained by Darius’ family, said, “Darius was taken away as they watched by several individuals, some of whom were masked and armed.” The teen was reportedly pushed into a Renault Clio around 5:30 p.m. on Friday by a group of armed men. According to police, Darius was then locked in a basement, where he was beaten to within an inch of his life.

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Kumaran Ira

Romani people sit next to their luggage shortly after arriving
from France at the international airport in Bucharest.

France’s Socialist Party (PS) government has threatened to forcibly dismantle Roma encampments in France, raising the spectre of mass expulsions of Roma. It also announced plans to force the Roma into “integration villages.”

PS Interior Minister Manuel Valls is leading the campaign to close down Roma camps. On July 31 he told Europe1: “Prefects have a mission to dismantle Roma camps when there is a court ruling. Things are simple. Yes, when there is a court ruling the camps will be dismantled.”

While preparing measures to expel Roma, there are also plans to place them in the so-called “integration villages.” There, the Roma would be forced to remain in ultra-cheap prefabricated housing and monitored by state employees and security forces.

According to Le Monde, there are five villages and three more are under construction in Lille, the hometown of PS First Secretary and Lille mayor Martine Aubry. Under the guise of providing social support for Roma, the purpose of such “villages d’insertion” is to ghettoize the Roma population.

Valls’s campaign against the Roma is a clear expression of the reactionary character of PS government, which is continuing the persecution of Roma and other immigrants from the previous government of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In his speech in Grenoble on July 30,2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy called for dismantling Roma camps across France, penalizing families and stripping French citizenship from migrants. After his speech, Sarkozy’s government deported over 10,000 Roma to Romania and Bulgaria. An estimated 15,000 Roma live in improvised housing encampments on the edges of major cities throughout France.

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Kumaran Ira & Alex Lantier

After winning the French presidential election on Sunday, the Socialist Party’s (PS) François Hollande is already positioning himself to drop his limited election promises on social spending and attack the working class with deep budget cuts.

Hollande’s victory reflected a broad popular rejection of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy’s austerity policies and his unpopular imperialist wars. However, any hopes for change from the incoming government will be rapidly disappointed by Hollande, who is moving to carry out reactionary policies. During his campaign, Hollande vowed to slash over €100 billion in deficit spending to have a balanced budget by 2017, while making a few proposals for social measures, like increasing school subsidies and hiring more teachers.

On Tuesday, Hollande’s campaign team told Reuters that Hollande’s advisers are pressing him to use a report from France’s leading audit body, the Cour des comptes, to justify ditching his limited campaign promises and intensify social cuts.

The report is due to be released after the June 10-17 legislative election. This would allow the PS to conceal its agenda of social austerity from the voters, while it seeks to put together a government, then rapidly move on with cuts after it has assembled a parliamentary majority and formed a cabinet on the basis of deceitful promises.

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