{"id":41366,"date":"2010-08-19T12:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T12:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/2010\/08\/19\/france-to-begin-expelling-roma-in-police-crackdown\/"},"modified":"2010-08-19T12:27:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-19T12:27:00","slug":"france-to-begin-expelling-roma-in-police-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2010\/08\/19\/france-to-begin-expelling-roma-in-police-crackdown.html","title":{"rendered":"France to Begin Expelling Roma in Police Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

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France is to begin deporting Roma (Gypsies) as part of a crackdown on illegal camps in the country, reports BBC News.<\/p>\n

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The 79 Roma who agreed to return home voluntarily will be given 300 euros (about $383) and flown back to Romania.<\/p>\n

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Some 700 Roma will be flown out of France by the end of August, in a move which has been sharply criticised by rights groups.<\/p>\n

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Romania has also expressed concern over the operation, saying it could lead to a rise in xenophobic sentiment.<\/p>\n

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The French government says it plans to shut down 300 illegal Roma camps in the next three months.<\/p>\n

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The controversial plan, backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, was put in place after clashes last month between travellers and police in the southern city of Grenoble.<\/p>\n

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The government says the camps are “sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime”.<\/p>\n

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Some 51 camps have already been demolished by police, the residents moving into temporary shelters or accommodation.<\/p>\n

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The operation has been condemned by human rights groups, who say it is deliberately stigmatising a generally law-abiding section of society to win support among right-wing voters.<\/p>\n

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Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi said on Wednesday that he was concerned about the possible social implications of the crackdown.<\/p>\n

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“I am worried about the risks of populism and xenophobic reactions in a context of economic crisis,” he told Radio France International.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France is to begin deporting Roma (Gypsies) as part of a crackdown on illegal camps in the country. The controversial plan, backed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[10750,10790,10789,10788,10791],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}