France defends the evacuation of Roma camps to the UN – Liberation

France on Wednesday defended the evacuation of “illegal camps” before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the UN. The day before, he had lamented a “banalization” of hate speech in French society towards minorities, including Roma. “The principle of equality is not the negation of these differences, which is why very many policies take into account the specificities and stronger special difficulties (…) can meet such and such minorities; there is the case of Travellers’ said Gilles Clavreul, interministerial delegate to the fight against racism and antisemitism.

According to the usual process of political transition review towards minorities in the countries applying the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination forces in 1965, the UN Committee discussed for two days the situation in France. The conclusions of the 18 UN experts will not be published before May 15

Tuesday, Ion Diaconu, expert of the UN Committee in charge of chairing the session on France, deplored “a certain trivialization of hate speech” in France. He also found that reports point to a “massive exclusion” of Roma and “committed violence” against them “by individuals and representatives of law police “.

The French delegation said Wednesday that the evacuations and evictions are not according to the origin of people in France. ” What we want to remind c ‘ is that the government action does not target specific populations but aims camps such as “, explained a representative of the Interior Ministry, Gaëlle Smirou, noting that these camps are forms of habitats “very precarious” that often pose hazards to its inhabitants. “The evacuations are in almost all cases ordered by a judge at the request of the land owner” , she further noted.

The French delegation also defended the accompanying policies, in particular housing, implemented during evacuations of “illegal camps”. She also emphasized that France encourage action to “promote” the culture of the Roma and that justice condemns discriminatory comments made on them. Moreover, Gilles Clavreul explained that the publication of detailed statistics on minorities – a request made yesterday by the experts – is framed by a decision of the Constitutional Council “that restricts the use that can be made statistics on race and ethnicity, whereas there is not a matter of objective data “.