Editor's Comment: President Nicolas Sarkozy's expulsion of the Roma (Gypsies) from France is a flashback to 1940 when the Nazis did the same thing. Sarkozy's just doing it in planes instead of cattle cars. How can this be when there is free movement across borders in Europe? His move to ethnically cleanse France of the Roma should not surprise us after watching his recent attack on Muslims with his crusade against the burqa. His pretext for this attack on the Gypsies is that they are criminals, accused by Sarkozy himself of crimes like, "human trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution". He couldn't be bothered to apply the law and due process to individuals; rather he leaps directly into collective punishment for them all. It's clear that he chose these hot-button crimes carefully because he knows that they foment bigotry and gain popular support among his right-wing constituency for this action against the Roma. Sarkozy's expulsion of the Roma is true to his Zionist roots and sounds very much like Israel's policies against the Palestinians. Last night, CNN reported on Sarkozy's Roma attack but offered no critical perspective whatsoever. Likewise, the AP article below is clearly designed to foster racism in a wholesale condemnation of a group of people, supporting their deportation from France at gunpoint. Under the Sarkozy regime, France has lost even a pretense for "Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité".

- Les Blough, Editor

Romanian Gypsies board a plane at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, near Paris last week.

PARIS - France will continue to dismantle illegal Gypsy encampments and send their inhabitants back to Eastern Europe despite widespread international criticism over the crackdown, the country's interior minister said Wednesday.

Brice Hortefeux said France was applying its laws when it expelled planeloads of Gypsies, or Roma, in recent weeks and evacuated more than 100 of their illegal camps.

The operation has sparked criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum and even from Europe's top human rights watchdog, which has accused France of stigmatizing Roma.

Hortefeux told the RTL radio the criticism was "political blather" and insisted racial prejudice was not behind the decision to expel the Gypsies. He said 117 camps have been dismantled and 630 people sent home, with some 300 more expulsions expected by the end of the month.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, presiding over his first Cabinet meeting since returning from summer vacation, urged his team "not to get sidetracked by useless controversies," Immigration Minister Eric Besson said, reporting the French leader's comments.

Conservative Sarkozy has argued that Gypsy camps are sources of trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution, and the crackdown is part of his wider fight against crime.

Hortefeux's comments Wednesday came ahead of his meeting with two top Romanian officials in charge of security and Gypsy issues. Many of the Roma in France are from Romania — a member of the 27-member European Union — and officials there have questioned French tactics on the expulsions.

An Interior Ministry statement said the legality of the expulsions was discussed at Wednesday's meeting.

"It was underscored that one of the principles of free movement — one of the fundamental liberties of the European Union — mustn't be turned into an excuse for human trafficking, prostitution, and begging," the statement said. "France's policy of sending (people) back is in accordance with European Union laws."

The officials pledged to work more closely together, adding that the few Romanian police officers deployed in France would be increased from 4 to 14, the statement said.

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Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press