Out of the frying pan and into the fire:
"In France, Roma migrants are targets for persecution" by Lori Hinnant | Associated Press July 20, 2014
GRIGNY, France — It looked like any shantytown the world over — tarpaulins to keep out the weather, scattered bits of trash that no truck would ever collect, plastic buckets to lug water. Then one of the inhabitants of this Roma camp on the northwest edge of Paris, a teenage boy named Darius, was beaten into a coma, apparently by residents of a neighboring housing project.
Within hours, the Roma vanished, seeking sanctuary in a new location on the fringes of one of the world’s wealthiest cities. Three weeks later, 16-year-old Darius remains unconscious. His family is in hiding. Police have made no arrests.
France is coming under increasing pressure to answer allegations that it is encouraging harassment of Europe’s poorest minority group in hopes that the Roma, also known as Gypsies, will leave the country.
About 20,000 are living in France, a number that appears to have changed little despite a decade spent bulldozing the squats that spring up, season after season, on unclaimed land.
Ever notice that EU governments are acting more and more like Israel?
In 2013, the number of people evicted equaled the number still here, according to government figures. With job prospects and discrimination even worse back in their homelands in Eastern Europe, Roma migrants keep coming back.
French government policy on the Roma seems to be in crisis. The official in charge of Roma resettlement lost his job recently. The government will not say why, nor whether he will be replaced.
The world over is in crisis because there are more than 50 million refugees, mainly due to western-initiated wars.
Police say the Roma give contradictory accounts of attacks against them. Roma say they are scared of retribution and distrustful of authorities in a country whose image as a beacon for the downtrodden is sullied by its long record of abuse of the minority. France’s Roma policies are under criticism by Europe’s top human rights court as well as Amnesty International and other groups.
Despite European Union borders that opened to the Roma this year, life is about to get even more difficult for them in France: The government is launching its annual operation to destroy Roma shantytowns, scheduled with the argument that homeless children suffer less during summer vacation.
The camp at the Paris suburb of Grigny is among those coming down. Of the 300 Roma squatting there, 10 families will be resettled. The town of 30,000, the poorest in its region and boasting the largest public housing project in Europe, has chosen the 46 people who will be offered housing based on their perceived ability to integrate.
The families themselves will not know who among them has been selected until the camp comes down in what is euphemistically called a ‘‘liberation of the land.’’
‘‘We did what we could, but we cannot welcome 300 people,’’ said Frederic Rey, the town’s spokesman. ‘‘We’re building what we can with the means we have.’’
Nearly all of the children are in local schools, and more than two dozen adults have regular jobs. Schooling and jobs are likely to come to an abrupt end when the camp comes down. Officials are in theory supposed to offer alternative housing under a 2012 government order, but in practice rarely do. Uprooted families spend days looking for a new pocket of unused land.
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Btw, the ethnic cleansing has been going on for years.
Speaking of genocide:
"France redeploys 3,000 troops in Africa
N’DJAMENA — France’s president announced the redeployment of 3,000 French troops in five of its former colonies across northwest Africa as part of an operation to help fight terrorism in the region. President Francois Hollande said Saturday that the new operation — code-named ‘‘Barkhane’’ after a crescent-shaped dune in the Sahara — will be based in Chad and will help secure the region (AP)."
It's the reoccupation of the continent for resource purposes is what it is.
Causes this, too:
"Ships rescue 400 migrants; 18 dead
ROME — Italian and Maltese naval vessels assisted by a passing cargo ship rescued some 400 migrants aboard a smugglers’ boat in waters near Malta and found the bodies of 18 people inside. The rescue was carried out early Saturday and involved a Danish cargo ship in the waters near Libya and Malta. There was no word on the nationality of the survivors. Malta said that since Thursday some 5,000 migrants have been rescued by Italy, many with Maltese help (AP)."
Isn't Sunday soccer day in Italy?
