Liberty, equality and fraternity – but not if you’re Roma
Scenes that Europe can do without
A few weeks ago, France gave a permanent home to several sub-Saharan people who had risked their lives to make the crossing to Europe, only to end up in a detention camp on an island further south than Tunis and Tangiers – Malta.
I was very much moved by the words and behaviour of France’s ambassador, who gave a party for those delighted new citizens of France at his home in Haz-Zebbug.
He spoke impressively about what it means to be French and of the guiding principles of liberty, equality and fraternity with which they would be welcomed and by which they would be expected to abide.
Then he accompanied them on their flight to Paris.
The ambassador’s words and gestures came across as sincere, but while my positive impression of him has remained, I cannot say the same of how I have come to regard his country since. Perhaps it is unfortunate that the actions of the French president and his government should reflect so badly on an entire population, when many among them might feel differently, and almost certainly do so if the harsh criticism he has received is anything to go by.
But then I ask myself: would the French government be acting as it is, expelling EU citizens who just so happen to be Roma, if it did not feel that it had the blessing of the electorate in doing so?
The European Union’s Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, has expressed concern – meaningful words when used in such a context – at France’s massive crackdown on Roma people. She says her office is considering the situation and whether France has broken EU laws.
Put simply, Roma people in France are either French citizens, in which case they cannot be expelled, or they are Romanian or Bulgarian citizens, making it likely that their expulsion is illegal, because Romania and Bulgaria are in the European Union.
Reding pointed out that while individual member states of the European Union have autonomy in the matter of public order within their borders, they remain constrained to respect EU rules on freedom of movement. France is in no more of a position to expel those who are more commonly described as gypsies than it is in a position to expel me, with my Maltese passport, should I decide to go there and live in a tent or caravan.
It all hinges on whether the expelled people have been prosecuted and found guilty of having committed a crime for which the penalty is deportation. France has kicked hundreds of Roma out of the country over the last couple of weeks, and there is no evidence so far that they have been put through due process.
It looks – at least from what has been shown on the international news channels – as though they have been rounded up and packed off. The scenes are unfortunate: this is Europe, which has a deeply embedded collective memory of similar spectacles, which is why alarm-bells are set off despite the law-and-order arguments.
“It is clear that those who break the law need to face the consequences. It is equally clear that nobody should face expulsion just for being Roma,” Viviane Reding said. “I have therefore asked my services to fully analyse the situation in France, in particular whether all measures taken fully comply with EU law.”
Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, but under an arrangement to protect its job market – an arrangement which expires in December 2013 – France can expel Romanians and Bulgarians who have been in the country for three months or more and who are unable to demonstrate that they can maintain themselves financially. This agreement is being used – or rather, abused – to clear out hundreds of Roma.
The buck, of course, stops with Nicolas Sarkozy, who comes across as increasingly self-obsessed, self-admiring and impulsive – or perhaps that should read ‘repulsive’. Money aside, he has a lot in common with Silvio Berlusconi, who also rode on the Roma a couple of years back when he felt his popularity slipping.
Using concerns about crime, Berlusconi tried to introduce compulsory fingerprinting for Roma and had their camps outside Rome policed and regularly harassed by guards. Italy’s minister of the interior, Roberto Marconi, has been quick to praise Sarkozy, telling an interviewer that France is “simply copying Italy.”
My private response on reading this was that it is most unfortunate that France and Italy have something else in common: willing collaboration with the Nazis in World War II in the deportation of Jews. But then perhaps that isn’t a coincidence. The mindset has clearly not changed.
Yes, Sarkozy is deploying the same tactic – using crime as an excuse to kick the Roma out. And this, too, has deeply unpleasant echoes in Europe, where the scapegoating of one particular group of people and blaming them for society’s ills led to the deaths of millions and the worst conflagration in history.
Let’s face it: the most that Roma can be associated with is petty theft. The real crimes are elsewhere. The white-slave-trafficking, child prostitution rings, terrorism, heroin and cocaine networks – those are not the work of Roma. And those are the real dangers to society. Pick-pocketing and begging are not. They are just a nuisance.
But Sarkozy has gone all out with this one, ordering police to step up deportations and to dismantle Roma camps. The argument that they are breaking the law by settling on public land might be pragmatic, but then why am I so uneasy with it?
The root of my unease lies in my perception that the law is being used as the enabling agent for more sinister motives. It is not so much that the French government is worried about people settling on public land or concerned that the law should be upheld. It is that the French government has looked for ways it can get rid of the Roma and has said, “Let’s use this public land business and get them on that.”
I am reassured by the fact that politicians right across the left-right spectrum in France have fiercely criticised these actions. So has the Vatican. But the spectre of children sitting on ragged bundles with their bewildered parents standing by stays with me still.
This is not what I want to see in Europe. Not now. Not ever. Not for any reason.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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If you want to be more balanced in your usual mockery of Sarkozy,try to read this link :http://www.france24.com/en/20100828-foreign-minister-rebuffs-mounting-criticism-over-roma-expulsions-kouchner-sarkozy-un-france
France and Italy have much to be ashamed of in their history, not only collaborating with Nazis. The French picked several fights with Germany, got their asses kicked and had to beg help from Britain – who they generally despise – twice to get to save them.
Italy stormed bravely into Abyssinia (Ethiopia) with planes and tanks against peasants armed with pitchforks and changed sides twice in two world wars. This is not to mention the Mafia and France’s cowardly blowing up Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior (planned by Segolene Royale’s brother, if I’m not mistaken).
The general mindset in both countries is opportunistic and egoistic, I agree. Having Berlusconi and Sarkozy as their leaders is a good indication of this.
But there is another side to the coin. Romanian gangs, thanks to EU membership, are free to roam around, stealing cars, robbing petrol stations and houses and holding up shops and banks.
Make no mistake – to Eastern Europeans the West is a gold mine and they’re digging it. Here in Austria we see it up close.
Taxpayers in Western Europe are getting fed up of supporting hordes of people who, frankly, think that the world owes them a living.
I don’t disagree with you when you say that white-slave-trafficking, child prostitution and drug-trafficking are the real dangers to society but you also have to admit that having a large group of lazy, dirty, thieving people isn’t exactly a benefit either.
What would it take for the more enterprising among them to get into more serious crime? If these people want to move to the west, by all means let them do so – legally. Why don’t they want to work for a living?
I gather that many tens or even hundreds of thousands of Poles have moved West since Poland joined the EU, but you don’t get mass deportations of Poles, do you? Why not? Because they work and want to be be successful, that’s why not.
I don’t condone Sarkozy’s actions, but you have to admit that the Roma have made themselves an easy target.
It is dangerous to assume that just because some criminals are Roma, then all Roma are criminals. I completely agree with having criminals arrested, tried in court and if found guilty punished proportionately.
In this case France is assuming that all Roma are guilty of crimes or will be guilty in the future, based solely on their ethnicity. It is actively deporting this ethnic group citing security as its motivation.
By all means, hunt down the gangs and punish them according to the law. I doubt the children in the photo above are roaming around stealing cars, robbing petrol stations and houses and holding up shops and banks though.
Chris, where did I say that the children in the photo are roaming about stealing cars etc?
My point is that unless you’re able to prove you’re able to support yourself, you’re not welcome. Furthermore it’s illegal to reside in an EU country for more than 3 months without being registered – and registering requires fulfilling certain obligations to show you will not be a burden on the state.
When I moved to Austria I had to jump through several hoops to get permission to reside here and permission was only finally granted when my ‘Lebensgefaehrtin’ provided a notarized guarantee that she’d bear all responsibility for my maintenance for 10 years. Rather humiliating but since that’s what it took I submitted to it.
If the Roma aren’t able or prepared to follow legal requirements they are inviting the consequences and I have no shame in not getting all cut up about that.
I repeat – I don’t condone Sarkozy’s actions. He appears to have picked exclusively on the Roma and it seems he’s acting rather heavy-handedly. He’s applying the law – though in a seemingly discriminatory fashion.
But by breaking the law the Roma have invited him to do so.
Your comment is more accurate than the article.
One more thing to add. Human trafficking and child prostitution are something the Romanian and Bulgarian mafia are famous for.
[Daphne – The Romanian and Bulgarian organised crime network you describe are not Roma. And there you have the irony: while real Bulgarian and Romanian criminals stay in France because they can demonstrate that they have the means to support themselves financially, their Roma compatriots are shipped out.]
Daphne, essentially what you are saying – between the lines – is that by demonstrating that they have the means to support themselves ‘criminals’ are in fact obeying that particular law. You also imply that the Roma are not obeying that particular law. You’re justifying Sarkozy’s behaviour.
[Daphne – No, I’m not. The application of any law has to be across the board and not discriminatory. The reality is that a blind eye is turned towards immigrants of all stripes and nobody bothers to demand registration or ask you whether you have the means to support yourself. Germany and Austria, to my knowledge, are the only two EU member states to pursue incoming people in this fashion. You can hang around forever in any other member state without ever encountering bureaucracy head on. That law is not intended to be a policing system and it certainly was not intended for abuse as the means to get rid of particular groups of people.]
France and Belgium both require everybody to register their address and also send a policeman to verify that you are who you claim to be and that you are not sheltering anybody that is not registered.
Roma people don’t even have an address, let alone a job.
Freedom of movement is not unconditional. You can’t expect countries to just accept immigrants who just want to leech the system and squat on public property.
Dear Daphne,
Your article points to a fundamental weakness in the EU as it is today. Inspite of all the bla bla bla, member states of the EU do not take the EU itsself seriously any longer.
Of course, Commissioner Reding has expressed “concern” and “will look into” France’s actions. But, hand on heart, what will the outcome of the “investigation”, if ever there will be one, be? Just a little statemen saying the Commission is “satisfied” that “EU law” was followed in this case, and “calls on Member States to consult with the Commission next time round”. Do you remember, a year or so ago, Italy’s accord with Libya regarding sending back refugees?
The Commission, also at that time, expressed “concern”. What is the result? The practice of sending refugees back to Libya is firmly in place, and a few weeks ago a senior Commission official said that Italy was ok in doing this, as Libya “was signatory” to some obscure convention protecting refugees.
The French government is saying that most of those who are being sent away are going back “voluntarily”, after being given some money, some E200, to “restart their lives”.
Being “EU citizens” does not count in EU Member States. Just ask those Maltese who needed to ask for a “permesso di soggiorno” in Italy…just ask them what bureaucracy they needed to go through…EU or not EU.
Citizens are beginning to see that the “EU” now is simply a debating society, a free trade area (and even this up to a certain point…where it matters, like in cigarettes and spirits there is no free trade).
Do you really think that the Commission would embarrass such a nation as France, in any way that matters? Let’s get real and see reality as it is.
Prosit Bert, ilqatt il-musmar fuq rasu. Jiena kelli nistenna ghaxar snin ghal Carta di Soggiorno permanente fl-Italja allavolja “EU citizen”.
Kull fejn immur ingorrha mieghi ma jmorrux iwaqqfuni u ma jsibuni minghajrha. U peress li Franza wahda mill-kbarat ta’ l-Ewropa tibqa sejra kif trid u tista tadotta kull tip ta’ policy, ara jekk jippruvaw jaghmluha l-Italja jew Malta hemmhekk kulhadd jitkellem u jqumu l-irwiefen.
Jiena min ma jirregolarizzax il-pozizzjoni tieghu bhalma ghamiilt jiena mill-ewwel gurnata li gejt nghix l-Italja allura iva mhuwiex welcome u jekk jirsistu li ma jridux jirregolarizzaw mela sinjali li ghandhom x’jahbu.
If France can deport the Roma (legally or not), does that not give Malta the right to deport the Africans who are not even European as opposed to the Roma, who are?
The actions of France do not determine Malta’s rights.
Right! That makes sense. That makes sense if you refer to an individual or if you are speaking theoretically. But in practice, today, in 2010, does textbook law still apply in politico-legal reality?
Rights that are not defined at law are as good as useless.
Why do you need France’s permission to do anything, anyway?
wow, way to miss the point of the article completely.
No, not really Marie. I meant my comment to be beside the point that Daphne was making. And once we are at it, I am not condoning such action either, I am just posing what I believe is a legitimate question as France’s actions seem to have set a very dangerous precedent!
I advise you to google the words “refugee” and “asylum seeker” for your answer.
Great article. Fully in agreement with you!
Daphne you have not yet been a victims of these vermins!
Let’s hope Sarkozy treats Muslims the same way, they want to take over Europe, control and subjugate non Muslims.
They probably learned from Europe, which tried to control and subjugate them.
They? As in everyone? Every single Muslim wants to take over Europe?
My goodness what extraordinary sources you must have for such a claim.
different true but worth reading this fine piece of literature:
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=11299
Are you updated with Gaddafi’s latest remark in Rome, that Europe should revert to Islam? Well, by the way things are going, in some years I am sure that the birth-rate in Europe of Islamic people will surpass by far the Christians. Pensate – pensate!
[Daphne – I think we should be concerned about the more immediate problem of Catholic fundamentalism and control over children’s minds in the present and in our own country, don’t you?]
As long as children are taught positively within OUR religion, I cannot see “control” – on the contrary good Catholic parents try to bring up their children in good Catholic principles.
[Daphne – Not at all. Any sort of indoctrination – whether religious or otherwise – is extremely damaging to a child’s intellectual development. It’s not the religion per se that’s the problem, but the fact that inculcation into a religion depends on squashing a child’s natural predisposition to enquiry and questioning. When a child’s mind is bound in this way to serve the needs of religion, the effect is felt in every other area, which is why Maltese people tend to be so poorly developed intellectually and actually have trouble developing thoughts and analysing information independently.]
“Any sort of indoctrination – whether religious or otherwise – is extremely damaging to a child’s intellectual development.[…] inculcation into a religion depends on squashing a child’s natural predisposition to enquiry and questioning.”
Richard Dawkins turns quite a good phrase, doesn’t he? I’ll bet somebody will be calling the NSPCC – or whatever it’s called here – to nip this child abuse in the bud.
[Daphne – I’ve never read Richard Dawkins. I find that level of obsession off-putting. Atheism is now just another religion. Children raised by people with the Richard Dawkins take on religion are as much at a disadvantage as children raised by religious obsessives.]
“[…]which is why Maltese people tend to be so poorly developed intellectually and actually have trouble developing thoughts and analysing information independently.”
Obviously this has absolutely nothing to do with our exam-oriented education system. As everybody knows, you’ve been to university. I’m sure you’ve met a person who, during an extremely interesting parenthesis in a lecture, raises up his/her hand to ask whether one can expect a question about this in the exam. It’s all the pope’s fault.We should have taken a leaf from Dawkin’s book and arrested the blighter the minute his plane landed.
[Daphne – It actually is directly linked to religious instruction, Reuben. You can’t develop a child’s mind one way for religion and another way for everything else. The minds of Maltese children – in general; there are numerous exceptions – are developed to accommodate Catholicism. Inquiry and probing are actively discouraged. Extreme conformity is encouraged and divergence from it is punished in a variety of ways. Children learn the lesson early on that asking questions is a bad idea and that stepping outside the clearly defined box is even worse. Maltese children know nothing about anything and, more worrying still, they have no curiosity. It has been wiped out of them. By the time they’re teenagers, it’s over already. The conversation of adults is dead and little more than small-talk. Haven’t you noticed this? I am not blaming it on the pope – but merely on our approach to religious instruction. There are Catholics everywhere. Italy, Spain, Portugal and France are predominantly Catholic, and they don’t have these problems. And no, it isn’t due to our exam-oriented culture. It’s due to the all-pervasive lack of imagination, and the failure to understand that exams – which are part of life, after all – are so very much easier to handle if you have a developed mind.]
Daphne, you really should read Richard Dawkins. You are making exactly his same points.
[Daphne – If I am making exactly the same points as he does, then I don’t need to read him, because clearly, I have arrived at the same conclusion independently. My points may be the same but my outlook is different, at least going on the basis of the many interviews with him that I have read, and several newspaper articles that he has written. I respect religion and I also see that there is a deep-seated human need and desire for it. Also, I am a liberal and the idea of forcing anyone to abjure religion is as innately abhorrent to me as forcing anyone to espouse it.
Committed atheists are as irritating and upsetting as committed religious fundamentalists. They are, in a way, religious fundamentalists too: their new religion is atheism. I consider organised religion negatively only when its mores are imposed forcibly on those who do not freely espouse them, when attempts are made at fitting secular laws to religious diktat, when religious rules are in head-on conflict with human rights and dignity, and when children are inculcated into a religion from birth, which I view as a violation of their integrity and liberty, besides all the concomitant risks to their intellectual and personal development.]
“And no, it isn’t due to our exam-oriented culture.”
I’m not so sure about that, or rather I’m sure it plays a part. Many Maltese kids, right up to university level, just study for exams. If it isn’t in the assigned textbook, again even at university, they don’t study it and complain if a question “was not covered in class”. This is tied to the “ask no uncomfortable questions issue”.
[Daphne – Don’t blame the exams. Everyone, everywhere has exams. Blame the people who sit for them, and their parents.]
General knowledge in Malta is abysmal at best, and “reading for a degree” just doesn’t mean the same thing any more. Once you stray from what people think is enough to know, you are deemed everything from a nerd to a pagan destined for hell.
My son’s supposed to start ‘MUZEW’ this year – Hah! I do hope they actually ask me about it!
You should read him to understand what his opinion actually is, not to learn any new concepts. You do share his opinion as a matter of fact (especially on the matter of indoctrination of children).
He does not advocate atheism in itself, as a religion which should not be questioned. He advocates being rational. The most significant opponent of rationality is religion, thus it is his primary target.
In a different environment, the target would be astrology, alternative therapies, patriotism, etc. Religion is the most important of these however because it is the strongest irrational force out there.
[Daphne – Agreed, and we’re seeing that in our very own divorce debate, where many in the anti-divorce camp are completely at a loss for arguments because their stance is religious and hence, irrational.]
@ Daphne
If atheism is a religion, then words have lost their meaning. In any case, Richard Dawkins’ movement exists primarily to promote humanism and fight off the excesses of organised religion, which are more felt in the US and the UK than they are in mainland Europe and Malta. (Incidentally, these excesses are the very same you’re complaining about: child indoctrination and the idea that one’s religious values and scripture can take precedence over individual rights and reason.) The approach taken by Dawkins is one that relies on persuation through ‘obsessively’ rational arguments and activism. But perhaps you think that better results can be had through the occasional newspaper article and the odd blog post.
Nowhere in his writings or speeches does Dawkins imply that children should be brought up as atheist; what he suggests is that children could be exposed to various religious theories and be left in the liberty to make up their own mind about religion as they come of age.
[Daphne – I do not agree that children should be exposed to various religious theories and be left to make up their own mind. This assumes that religion is essential. It isn’t – at least not at an individual level, though it seems to be essential to humanity in general. In the main, those who are left at liberty to choose a religion will choose none at all, which says a lot – just as the majority of those who are brought up in religious households in a secular state will, at the first opportunity, dump all but the merest shell of that religion and generally dump it altogether. Children should learn about religion just as they learn about everything else: as general knowledge, and in an uninvolved manner.]
“Don’t blame the exams. Everyone, everywhere has exams. ”
oh I don’t
“Blame the people who sit for them, and their parents.]
and I do …
My point is that people here seem to make it a point to learn the bare minimum! The goal seems to be pass the exam and not be a good lawyer/teacher/whatever!
Any idea how many newly graduated teachers (apart from history I hope) barely know about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
No, I don’t.
What control over children’s minds are you talking about? Smell the coffee! We’re becoming less and less interested in the church in Malta each passing day. People do as they please, including swearing, stealing, shagging with condoms and don’t bother to attend church.
[Daphne – Christopher, read the newspapers. Are they the newspapers of a secular state with a secular electorate? Count the number of times God and the Church are mentioned. Look at the arguments, the reasoning, the letters to the editor, the false scruples. And most of all, examine the poverty of argument, the lack of intellectual development, the immaturity of adults who speak, write and think like 12-year-olds. Why do you think that so many Maltese adults are like large children? Even the actions you describe are carried out in the context of Catholicism – as breakaway behaviour usually assessed in the context of sin. Why do the parents who do all these things and who don’t believe a thing of it continue to send their children to doctrine classes and make a big thing out of first holy communion? It’s because social life for much of Malta is framed in the context of Catholicism and there is no social life outside the rituals of the church.]
Of course we should be on our guard against Islam! As a woman (and therefore, you’d be treated worse than a camel in an Islamic country) you more than anyone should be against it. All women in fact. Strewth.
[Daphne – Oh come on. The Muslims you have in mind are the equivalent of the village Catholics who cast our their sons for being homosexual and their daughters for getting pregnant outside marriage. And how are Muslims going to threaten me, anyway? Europe is determinedly secular. The only member states with religious control problems are those who had them to start with: Poland, Ireland and Malta.]
We’re making it easy for Islamists to swamp us – your rabbiting on about a tiny fundamentalist Christian minority who no one pays attention to anyway is only helping them.
[Daphne – You cannot be serious.]
You claim to observe society, yet you can’t see how minority tails wag majority dogs! Look at Britain – go to a job centre there and see the notices/forms published in Urdu.
These people are not prepared to do as the Romans do when in Rome. They insist on imposing their culture/religion and are murderously offended at perceived insults. And this when still a small minority.
Wait till they’re a big minority, or indeed, a majority. Invite Islam in at your peril.
I AM SERIOUS.
[Daphne – Really, Christopher? What about the Catholics trying to impose their will on everyone else in Malta, in the matter of divorce, for instance? Doesn’t that worry you at all? The thing you don’t see is this: Catholicism and Islam are both extreme, fundamentalist religions. The fact that we are cultural predisposed to one and opposed to the other prevents many of us from seeing this. Some say that the crucial difference is that Catholicism permits apostasy and Islam does not. Wrong: the Catholic Church continues to consider you as one of its own if you have been baptised into it, even if you become a Buddhist, divorce, and set up a polygamous harem while running around murdering people and using condoms. Up to the early 1970s, Malta was run as a Catholic theocracy in precisely the same way that some Islamic states are now run in a manner that we find frightening and abhorrent. It was an imposed secularism (partial secularism, at least) which put an end to that, and not the superior views of the Catholic Church on personal liberty. The views of the Catholic Church and Islam were women, the family and society are concerned are near-identical. The difference is that in those parts of the world where Catholicism operates, its efforts at maintaining the Catholic version of an Islamic shariah state have been systematically defeated over the last 300 years or so.]
Why are you so critical of Muslims for acting the way they do towards women? Just look at their calendar year – 1431, now where was Christianity in AD1431? It was burning Joan of Arc at the stake for wearing man’s clothing. The technical reason for her execution was a biblical clothing law. Moreover, Europe was split between two Popes for decades. The Spanish were raping the Americas in the name of Catholicism.
Just give them a few centuries.
“lets face it: the most that Roma can be associated with is petty theft”.
This statement, which is hopelessly flawed, mars an otherwise good and interesting analysis.
Thank you, Daphne, for not going along with the so-called silly season (read ‘excuse by columnists to write rubbish’). This is an important piece.
Isn’t it paradoxical that a time of ‘EU integration’ (when borders and papers should matter less and less), ‘fuzzy’ people like the Roma – who lack the very things we say shouldn’t matter – should find themselves so unwanted and shoved around?
There is a long history of relations between the French state and the Roma, by the way. The present cruelty is just the latest chapter.
[Daphne – And here’s the greatest irony: the only French blood to which Sarkozy can lay claim is that of just one of his grandparents. He father was not only Hungarian but Jewish; his mother half French. And his wives? The first was Corsican, the second (Cecilia) had a White Russian Jewish father and a Spanish mother, and the present one is Italian, and the natural daughter of a South American of German extraction. The only French blood in any of his children’s veins is that of a single great-grandparent. Going by that sort of reasoning, I’m Irish.
Incidentally, those who expressed their views beneath an earlier post on the subject of Sarkozy should read this excellent piece (link further down), published three years ago. It describes perfectly the authoritarian nature of French government when it comes to freedom of the press (we all remember how, famously, the French electorate only discovered that Mitterrand had a permanent mistress and grown daughter with her when questions were asked about the two unknown women standing so familiarly next to his widow at his funeral.
This article was written just a few months before Sarkozy met and married Carla Bruni; it is more than obvious that his was an act of revenge on the object of his real obsession. If French journalists were permitted to discuss the subject, they would open a debate on the insight this kind of behaviour gives into the man’s character and emotional state. It is also the reason that Bruni invariably comes across as a human handbag in photographs of the couple – quite unlike photographs of Sarkozy with Cecilia, in which she is the one whose body language indicates indifference towards him while his body language is that of an infatuated teenager. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ccilia-sarkozy-the-first-lady-vanishes-454247.html%5D
I hate to reply using the usual Maltese jurisprudential argumentation, but this is wrong on so many counts:
“France is in no more of a position to expel those who are more commonly described as gypsies than it is in a position to expel me, with my Maltese passport, should I decide to go there and live in a tent or caravan.”
Freedom of movement depends on 1) finding a job within three months and 2) having a fixed address (see below. Sorry, but I had to cut and paste). The persons who were expelled had neither.
This is why the EU hasn’t declared outright that France has broken EU rules. Because it hasn’t, even though this expulsion has no precedent, and amazingly, is not covered by any EU law. As for the fact that the Roma were targeted, they are the ones who are most obviously in breach of EU rules. Of course there are EU nationals from other countries in the same situation, but one has to start somewhere.
Make no mistake, if a Maltese national were to settle down in France, with no address, and no job, he or she would be expelled after the three months are up.
From the European Parliament fact sheet:
“The right of residence is regarded as being linked to the right to take up a job [under Article 39 (48) (3)(a) ECT, as it entails the right ‘to accept offers of employment actually made’] and so should not be exercised simply in order to look for work. After three months, which is considered sufficient time to find a job, the right of residence should result in the issuing of a permit (other than the residence permit for “ordinary” foreigners) called a “Residence Permit for a National of a Member State of the EEC” (Article 4 of Directive 68/360): it is issued on production of the identity card with which the person in question crossed the border and of a statement of engagement from the employer or a certificate of employment.”
[Daphne – You miss the point, Baxxter, that the measures are being used specifically to target Roma and not vagrants in general. That is where the problem lies.]
No I don’t miss the point. The measures are being used because they need to be used against all persons in infringement of EU laws on freedom of movement. The Roma were targeted because they’re so obviously breaking the rules that it would be stupid not to take action.
Sure, other groups are far more dangerous: African and North African immigrants and second-generation French citizens from the ex-colonies, or the Chinese mafia of Paris’s 13th Arrondissement. However, these people are either French citizens or they’re legal residents, so they cannot be deported. They can, however, be stripped of French citizenship in the case of serious crimes if they hold dual nationality. But you wrote an article bashing the proposal just a few weeks ago.
I do understand that there may be tragic human histories behind these events. But we’re all more or less in the same shit, and short of doing away with laws and national boundaries altogether, there is no other solution. Perhaps you journalists were wrong to raise everyone’s expectations about what life holds in store. It seems to have started after the Second World War, and we have a lot of it in Malta. The whole “Life is Beautiful” and “Fulfil your Dreams” theme. You may not be guilty, but your colleagues certainly are.
H.P. Baxxter, thank you for agreeing with me.
I’m amazed at how many people out there can’t see that the Roma are breaking the law and having to face the consequences. If we carry this ‘why don’t they leave them alone and go after the white-slavers instead’ it will render the law useless. If it’s OK to settle illegally, isn’t it OK to drive a car without a driving licence? Build a ‘kamra’ without a permit etc. etc. etc. Once you condone one type of law-breaking you’re opening up a huge can of worms…
Well, sort of agree with you. Your comments about France “picking up fights with Germany” and “getting Britain to rescue her” were puerile, not to mention historically incorrect.
But I don’t wish to derail this thread even further. I already see the words “Christian” and “God” and “Church” mentioned several times, and I think we can kiss goodbye to rationality in this thread.
Better 10 guilty people go free then one innocent person gets punished.
Aren’t freedom and human rights what so many owe so much to so few for?
Roma people have a saying. ‘Bury me standing, I’ve been on my knees all my life.’
This millennium smacks of integralism and fundamentalism whether, Jewish, Muslim, Christian /Catholic, Hindu, etc. That’s bad too bad.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100827/world-news/france-expels-more-roma-to-bucharest
Have any of you been surrounded by a group of Roma children pulling at you? Then they run away and you realise your wallet is gone. Or a couple of sweet Roma children ask you for something, while you try and understand an adult passes by and again your wallet is gone.
Admittedly it’s not high terrorism but it frightens people and is bad for tourism.
On Italian TV a cameraman on a high building filmed a young Roma boy for about 30 minutes and he robbed a number of people.
In Lourdes gypsies from all over the continent meet for a week or so. The car-parks are taken over by the caravans and their children roam about on their own.
The police come out in force as they make a feast day by pickpocketing.
Does any one know if any of the Roma gypsies are actually in employment?
“Does any one know if any of the Roma gypsies are actually in employment?”
In Malta they are employed as strippers and lapdancers. All of Stiletto’s female staff, bar a couple of the girls, are Romanian gypsies. Which incidentally belies all the self-righteous talk about “stripperssss Russi”.
Baxxter, happy to see you’re still industrially researching this topic. ‘Hang in’ there.
Do you want to hear all about it, Purdie? My last field trip was quite amusing, and I learned another bitter lesson about career choices.
Pole dancing didn’t work out! Pity.
This calls for a post. The more reactionary among you may wish to avoid reading this.
I’ve always been fond of the place that used to be Browns, in Paceville, ever since my impromptu homecoming party. This was the place that had a neat little brass plaque marking the blessing of the place on its opening night by HE Monsignor The Archbishop. That evening, the crowd was congenial and the music was started out mostly trance and ended up totally trance as the night wore on. Besides, the manager desperately wanted to get into the knickers of The Russian Among us. Now before you run away with any ideas, Purdie, no, I’ve never slept with her, and she’s a decent girl, and a champion chess player to boot. So this fat sleazy chap was bringing out complimentary bottles of cheap Italian spumante, which he called ‘champagne’. Needless to say, she wasn’t impressed. But I had the time of my life, up on the box with a bottle of free bubbly in one hand, and the other raised skywards as Dash Berlin’s “Waiting” reached its breakdown.
But I digress.
After a long period of renovation and decorating at Browns, during which it stayed open, and you’d get plaster-encrusted glasses, the club once called Browns reopened as part of Stiletto.
Bored at Sabor, I decided to hop along to Stiletto to check out the new place, and have a quiet drink. After all, Richard Feynman did most of the work on his brilliant QED inside the local strip joint, writing the equations on paper napkins. I thought that the soothing atmosphere would help me work towards my own Nobel.
Putting on my best gravelly voice and Clark Gable eyebrows, I ordered a G&T at the bar, after a few compliments about the décor to the delicious barmaid, who was better looking than any of the strippers prowling for clients.
I was nursing my drink introspectively when I felt a hand slowly massaging my neck. Years of training in various shitholes kicked in, and I immediately reacted, ready to jab my elbow into the assailant’s solar plexus and finish him with an overhand throw.
It was a lady! She must have been 20 at most, sporting a rather wobbly arse and in danger of growing a gut.
“Relax,” she purred. “Are you Maltese?”
“Bien vu,” I replied, “What about you?”
“Buy me a drink.”
That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. And ever skint, I was awfully short of money. I tried to explain this as tactfully as possible.
“I only want a B52; I’m not buying a cocktail,” came the reply.
Righto, I thought, we’ll buy the tart a drink and that’s it. So I obliged. She promptly ordered a B52 AND a coke, which I thought was rather cheeky seeing as I had put up the funds, but there you go.
“So, then, where do you come from,” I asked.
“Romania.”
“Ah, Romania! Dacia! Great civilisation. Decebalus!”
“Yes, Decebal. I don’t want to talk about Romanian history.”
“All right then, what do you want to talk about?”
“Let’s go to the couch near my cousin.”
Her cousin, it turned out, was roughly the same age and the same shape. And she also wanted a drink. My Physics Nobel was fast disappearing.
Desperate to change subject, I remarked that she too, then, must be Romanian. By that time, Stripper No. 1 had finished her drink and was asking for another one.
“You’re depleting my funds,” I said. “At least you’re not a gypsy, or you’d have stolen my wallet outright.”
“But I am a gypsy,” she replied.
Now usually my sense of honour would have driven me to pathetic apologies, but this was a strip joint, the girls were annoying, and it wasn’t the time or the place for gentlemanly honour.
“Interesting. A gypsy. Then you can speak Romani, right?”
“Yes.” And off she goes chatting with her cousin in their native language.
The cousin had sensed a business opportunity, for she offered to read my palm in Romani, while Stripper No. 1 would translate. “Brilliant”, I thought, “I’m having my future told AND I’m learning a foreign language. I might get that Nobel after all.”
First I learned that I have the hand of a chicken. Not a very useful phrase. And I was about to rebut that chickens don’t have hands. Then I learned the phrase for “You have a very long penis,” which rather pleased me. She foretold my love life, how I would have a child with a black woman (me?), who would then leave me, and how I would find a blonde girl who would be the love of my life. Suits me, I thought.
Then she said I would die at 65, which had me worried since I’d always planned to live until 30 and then blow my brains out, seeing as my life was still a miserable, painful mess.
By now, we’d been joined by a third stripper.
“Cousin of yours?” I asked.
“No, but she’s also a gypsy. There’s my sister downstairs. You want to meet her?”
At this point one had to wonder.
“Are there any girls working here who are not Romanian gypsies?”
“There is one Polish and one Bulgarian.”
“So the rest are all gypsies?”
“Yes.”
Blimey. I’d stumbled upon the largest Roma convention this side of Bucharest.
Meanwhile, the fortune teller was demanding ten euro for her services. Of course I pointed out that there was no such agreement, and refused.
“Then buy me a drink.”
The third gypsy, inspired by her colleagues, also asked for a drink. And of course there was still Gypsy No. 1, who was now asking for a drink while doing the old “index finger along inner thigh” routine.
Gently disengaging her hand, I pointed out that they probably made more in a day than I did in a month.
Quick as a flash came the reply: “Yes, we can make 800 to 1000 euro a day.”
She must have seen my jaw dropping, for she continued, “Then we have one male stripper. He is the only man so he makes more, up to 2000 per day.”
“Oh my Baxxter what have you done,” screamed the inner voice. I made a quick mental calculation. I had learned through my mate Spud that they charge 25 euro per lap dance, which lasts about 15 minutes max.
So they’d need to do 40 lap dance sessions to earn 1000 euro. Through my other mate Spadger I had learned that they charge 100 euro for a full service. Mostly lap dances, few full services, 1000 euro….yeah, it figures.
1000 euro. A grand a day. To get on a box and take off your knickers. And I wasted my youth and the best years of my life deluding myself that education would give me the best chance for success.
At this point, I thought I’d do what I’d been doing for the past eight months and ask whether they had any job openings.
“You can be our male stripper,” replied Gypsy No. 1 helpfully. Then she felt my biceps. “But you need to spend five years in the gym.”
Hell, what were five years if I could make 2000 euro per day? It was as good an investment as I’d ever seen. And a far better career plan than the one I’d fatefully dreamed of in Form 2, all those years back. A lifetime away.
Now I was sitting in a seedy strip club on a goddamn godforsaken rock, unable even to scrape together enough cash to buy a girl a drink.
Which they were still asking for – nay, insisting upon, their demands getting more animated, punctuated by exchanges in Romani.
“You buy us a drink,” they all said.
“Sorry, ladies,” I replied. “It’s been nice knowing you but I’m off to the gym.”
And I got up and left.
Absolutely amazing, Baxxter! I offer you my gym membership. Your ‘member’ deserves it. My gym is called ‘Gypsies Galore’.
Any discrimination is immoral. Whether it’s Roma, blacks, Muslims …they’re people with as much right to roam God’s earth as the next person.
Think along “if you tolerate this, then your children will be next” lines.
That line from the Manics is exactly what I think of when I see women being stoned by Muslims.
But hey, Daphne says they’re no worse than Catholics, so that’s alright then.
[Daphne – Muslims don’t stone women, Christopher. Islamic shariah states do – just as the Catholic theocracies burnt them at the stake and worse. Perhaps you should read Wettinger’s book on slavery in Malta. He describes events so sickening that I literally had to stop reading: all of it perpetrated by Catholics on Muslim slaves. So let’s not get too excited. You’re mistaking the distinction between those societies which have gone through ‘enlightenment’ and those which have not for a distinction between religions. Women are not stoned in Libya, Tunisia, Turkey, Bosnia, Morocco….and another thing: if all Catholics had to be judged on the basis of those nut-jobs who fall about wailing at those vast public meetings where a man in a white outfit and a black wig and make-up talks them into believing they’ve been cured…]
I will only say – as a final comment – that while what you say is true, shariah states are on the wax and Catholic ones (that had objectionable practices 300 years ago, minimum) have all but disappeared (leaving more room for Islamic expansion).
Deny this reality at your peril. Q.E.D.
[Daphne – And the Martians are landing. Whatever next.]
It’s less than 50 years since the Roman Catholic Church collectively held the Jewish people responsible for deicide.
Why are they called “Roma” on the continent and “travellers” in UK and Ireland? Is it because “gypsies” reminds us of cattle trucks heading for Auschwitz-Birkenau?
[Daphne – Most travellers/gypsies in the United Kingdom and Ireland are not Roma; they are of Irish descent – the original tinkers, as in ‘tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor’. You can see that just by looking at them. They look nothing like Roma. Actual Roma are of Romanian descent but originally from the Indian subcontinent. That’s why they look distinctly Indian.]
The two countries who are deporting Roma people are, guess who, Italy and France who have an abysmal record in WWII in deporting Jews, Roma , communists and other “undesireables” and who went out of their way in collaborating with the Nazis with the Vichy government and Mussolini’s “leggi raziali” enacted in 1938.
It is very easy to base one’s opinions on ideals when one is far removed from the situation and lives in Malta.
In Italy these Roma (or Rom as they are known here) are lawless.
They live mostly abusively in large encampments, they do not work or rather they use children to beg and “clean” windscreens, they regularly throw their babies into the garbage or let them freeze to death outside their camps. They set fire to their camps causing damage not only to themselves but to anything around them. And sadly these are not exceptions or example they are the rule.
[Daphne – They set fire to their own camps? Why would they do that? This reminds me of those arguments on Viva Malta – the black-shirt website – four years ago when our house was set on fire: ‘She did it so that we would get the blame.’]
Those unfortunate people who happen to find a “campo Rom” cropping up next to their home live a nightmare. Of course with the added bonus that nobody would buy their property if situated within a range of ten kilometres from a Rom encampment.
The law is not enforced against Rom because the police are reluctant to get anywhere near them, or rather near the encampments of the poor amongst them.
Of course, the leaders behind these people are filthy rich and also untouchable. I fully agree that the Rom who want to live in this way and who sat up camps or shanty towns should first of all be prosecuted and then deported. After all if I had to set up a tent in a place not reserved for campers, for example on the beach for one night, I would immediately be fined up to 500 Euros – so where’s the equality and who’s above the law here?
I am fully behind Roberto Maroni on this one !!
Oh yes they do, not purposely but accidentally. They live very closely huddled up together, in the heat, and they cook on open fires very close to their tents. This summer at least four children died in this way !
Let me see if I understood you correctly. Roma camps accidentally – not intentionally – burn down, therefore Roma are a public nuisance, therefore Maroni is correct and the Roma communities should be deported.
What would you do to arsonists of the non-accidental, non-Roma variety?
Whilst I understand that what France is doing can be classified as racist because it is targeted solely at Roma, since I started living abroad, one of the worst shocks I had to overcome was seeing these Roma everywhere.
When I lived in Rome, we had strict orders to lock the front door of the block of flats where I lived, because whenever someone accidentally left it open, the day after the internal courtyard would be full of Roma sleeping.
One easily becomes familiar with Roma at the end of each corner selling any stolen items from watches to handbags… every time I went to a restaurant, the evening was disrupted by Roma coming up to every woman young and old and insisting that any man at the same table should buy her roses (usually this scene would repeat itself more than once in the same evening).
I dreaded whenever we had to stop at traffic lights because even there, Roma would be waiting to sell stuff like tissues or simply put their filthy sponge on the windscreen sometimes even before asking permission, to be paid a few cents. On the metro one would easily get used to sixteen-year-olds carrying children, sometimes very young, begging for money….and I can keep going on and on.
What bothers me is that they do this even though they do sometimes have the money. I remember once soon after I had moved to Rome that police had found millions hidden in the soil next to where they lived.
From what I can understand, poverty is a way of life. They don’t want to change; they want to have the benefits of living in an EU country whilst not abiding by EU laws (for instance they are in favour of child marriage and bride kidnapping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people), not to mention that the EU law states that an EU member who transfers to another country needs to be able to support himself financially.
I just hope that France will do the same to all other illegal immigrants residing in the country. On a recent trip to the south of France I was shocked to see villages where all the shops were in Arabic and the absolute majority of women wore veils.
[Daphne – Arab = illegal immigrant? Those ‘Arabs’ you saw have always been French citizens. I can’t understand why you find it shocking. Presumably, you don’t find it shocking to see French used in Algiers.]
Pity that most of these people have a French citizenship by now and it’s harder to have any of them deported!
[Daphne – They don’t have French citizenship ‘by now’. They had it from birth. They are in France because when France gave up its North African territories, the French citizens of those territories were given the choice of staying or moving to France – just as the British subjects of Malta between 1801 and 1964 could move freely to Britain.]
But I assure you it’s very hard to find any brie cheese in the region I was in… most likely you’d have to settle for some couscous!
I have started to believe that other central EU countries have a worse situation than Maltaw when it comes to illegal immigrants…
[Daphne – I hate to be rude, but you should listen to yourself. “Most probably some couscous” – perhaps you don’t know that this is one of THE regional dishes of Palermo. Why you should prefer Brie to a good couscous is anyone’s guess.]
simply because when people are in France, they usually prefer to take advantage of the french gastronomy rather than arabic…. (and yes I am aware that couscous is present in other dishes too…naturally…)
[Daphne – Couscous is a dish, not something that is present in other dishes. It is one of the regional dishes of Palermo because Palermo was the capital of Arabic Sicily and remains proud of the fact. It has retained much of its Arabic heritage, including couscous. Brie is not French gastronomy. It is a cheese.]
If you would have someone deported for using a dirty sponge or selling roses, what remedy would you recommend for racist bigots?
The Italian Minister of the Interior you refer to is Roberto Maroni not Marconi.
Some facts about the French Roma. Hold your handbag tight when you’re in the Metro in Paris!
En 2009, 3151 délits ont été imputés à des ressortissants roumains à Paris, soit une hausse de 138 % par rapport à 2008. Deux tiers de ces infractions (2094) étaient des vols. La moitié de ces faits (49%) ont été commis par des mineurs.
Pour les sept premiers mois de 2010, on leur reproche 3 493 atteintes aux biens dans l’agglomération parisienne (soit 13,65 % de l’ensemble des délits de ce type). Dans la capitale, 20 % des vols sont attribués à des Roumains. Un quart de ces faits sont commis par des mineurs.
How refreshing to see some real politicians (leaders) not succumbing to the manipulated voices of the masses!
France to continue deporting Roma despite EU pressure. Mr Besson was accompanied by colleague Pierre Lellouche. France will not stop deporting Roma (Gypsy) people, French Immigration Minister Eric Besson has said on a visit to Romania. “We are not going to submit to a political diktat,” he said.