WALL STREET JOURNAL:
France Prepares to Deport Foreign Gypsies
By SEBASTIAN MOFFETT And MAX COLCHESTER
PARIS—France is preparing to deport hundreds of foreign Gypsies as part of a drive to clamp down on lawbreaking by Roma, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said Tuesday.
(...)
It plans to put those who aren't allowed to remain legally in France on flights home, and is offering them €300 (about $390) per adult and €100 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 don't appear to be resisting deportation.
(...). The campaign has led to charges that he is engaging in a populist ploy to distract from a number of political setbacks. His ruling UMP party did badly in regional elections in March. In July, a prosecutor launched a probe into links between Mr. Sarkozy and Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the founder of French cosmetics group L'Oréal SA. Mr. Sarkozy denied that Ms. Bettencourt had illegally financed his 2007 presidential campaign—but he was hurt by the perception of links to Europe's richest woman, who has also admitted evading taxes. And although France's economy improved, growing 0.6% in the second quarter, the latest unemployment figure remained stubbornly high at 9.5%.
(...)
Mr. Sarkozy launched the campaign "to hide his political weakness," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-leader of the European Parliament's Green grouping, in an interview in Monday's Le Monde newspaper.
(...) Jean-Pierre Grand, described them as rafles, using the French word for "roundups." The word is associated with the World War II roundup of Jews by French police on behalf of the occupying Nazis.
(...).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703824304575435653413530506.html?mod=ITP_pageone_3
Deportation, rafles, Nazis... Les journalistes ont surtout retenu ces termes ... La France n'a pas bonne presse à l'étranger!!!! La politique de Sarko et les "affaires étrangères"...pas génial pour notre image !!!
