FRANCE is preparing to deport hundreds of foreign gypsies as part of a drive to clamp down on lawbreaking by Roma, The Wall Street Journal reported today. Hope they are not coming to the UK on the bounce?
The deportations, scheduled to start tomorrow, follow the dismantling of 51 illegal camps - set up by Roma of eastern origin and by other gypsies, including French citizens - over the past three weeks, reported The Wall Street Journal today.
Around 700 of the people expelled from their camps who were staying in France illegally will be flown home to Central and Eastern Europe, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said yesterday.
"We are not stigmatizing a community, but making people respect the law," he said in a speech in Toulon, southern France.
Around 15,000 gypsies in France are Roma from Eastern Europe, in particular Romania.
Because the European Union guarantees freedom of movement, they can travel to France - but can settle there only if they can support themselves. After three months in France, they must leave unless they can prove that they are working or studying and that they have sufficient funds and health care.
The French government is interviewing the Roma to determine where they are from. It plans to put those who are not allowed to remain legally in France on flights home, and is offering them €300 ($428) per adult and €100 ($142) per child as "aid for a humanitarian return."
To prevent them from returning and claiming such payments again, the government plans to collect biometric data on those who are deported. Most of the foreign Roma do not appear to be resisting deportation.
Officials at the Romanian Embassy in Paris could not be reached to comment.
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