France recently
expelled nearly 100 Roma people back to their native Romania. The
supposed goal of the government is to put an end to trafficking,
exploitation of children and prostitution, which Pres. Sarkozy links
to the Roma communities in France.
 Roma camp near Paris was cleared |
This racist
argument is a cover for the real goal of the French financial
oligarchy, which is to distract and divide the French working class
from the reality of a failing economy and cuts to education and other
social programs by inciting racial hatred for an oppressed
nationality.
What is not talked
about in this propaganda move by the French government is the fact
that both Romania and France are members of the European Union, and
it is completely within the rights of the Roma people who were
expelled to immediately return to France. And this seems to be the
very intent of a number of those expelled.
Alexandre Le Cleve,
a spokesman for Rom Europe, told Associated Press Television News:
“Obviously, these people come back, they are brought to the
Romanian border, then come back to France, can leave again and so
on.”
According to French
officials, those repatriated left “on a voluntary basis”
and were given $386 for each adult and one-third of that amount for
children supposedly to help them get back on their feet in their home
country.
Departures not ‘voluntary’
Roma advocates,
however, say the repatriations were not voluntary, and those who
refused the deal would end up in holding centers to be sent home
without funds at a later time.
One of those
expelled, along with his wife and three children, was 37-year-old
Adrian Paraipan, who said he planned to return to France. “’In
two weeks, I will leave again,’ he said, adding that his family was
unable to make a living in Romania.” (Associated Press, Aug. 19)
This is the
political red herring that the French ruling class wants to downplay.
They want people to focus on racial stereotypes and see Pres. Sarkozy
as tough on crime. This is despite the fact that the people being
scapegoated by the French government are some of the most
impoverished and vulnerable people in Europe.
Hatred and
discrimination against the Roma people is nothing new in France.
Although it is widely known that the French government under Nazi
occupation put the Roma people into internment camps, a lesser known
but more revealing reality of widespread hatred of the Roma people
was the fact that they were not released until 1946, some two years
after the end of the occupation.
Progressives and
revolutionaries stand with the Roma people against the racist actions
of the French government. All working and oppressed people of the
world can identify with the old Roma saying: “Bury me standing,
I’ve been on my knees all my life.”
