# French Dopers...whats the deal with the Roma? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752 "2010-08-19T16:57:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/1 "2010-08-19T16:57:39Z")
Was reading [this](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_france_gypsy_crackdown) article about France expelling 70 or so Gypsies back to Romania, and was wondering what the deal is. Why go through all this when they can (and seemingly do) come right back in (since they are part of the EU, and so can seemingly move freely from Romania back to France)? And why keep paying them over and over again? What’s the point and what are they trying to accomplish? Just curious. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/2 "2010-08-22T15:36:38Z")
Huh, I was curious about this too. Nobody? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/3 "2010-08-22T16:33:08Z")
I believe the evicted Roma are going to be biometricly logged and will not be allowed back, if they return they will be indentified and evicted again, with rather less ceremony than previously. Identification has always been one of the main issues with illegals, and especially the Roma. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/4 "2010-08-22T16:48:31Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > I believe the evicted Roma are going to be biometricly logged Is that the modern version of tattooing a number on their forearm? That sounds more argumentative than I intended. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/5 "2010-08-22T17:14:23Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > I believe the evicted Roma are going to be biometricly logged and will not be allowed back, if they return they will be indentified and evicted again, with rather less ceremony than previously. That’s the first I’ve heard of this and I doubt it would be allowed under EU law. There are very, very limited circumstances under which an EU citizen can be permanently excluded from another EU country and chronic unemployment isn’t one of them. And what with the Schengen open borders, it would be pretty much impossible to stop them coming in in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/6 "2010-08-22T17:46:09Z")
that is the one thing wrong with the whole EU thingy, the free passage deal … it seems to abrogate a country’s ability to turf out undesirables, they keep oozing back over the border =( ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/7 "2010-08-22T17:46:49Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Huh, I was curious about this too. Nobody? You know, on the SDMB, questions about Jewish law and practice always get asked on Saturday? Same sort of thing with asking questions about France during August. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/8 "2010-08-22T22:08:02Z")
[QUOTE=aruvqan] that is the one thing wrong with the whole EU thingy, the free passage deal .. it seems to abrogate a country’s ability to turf out undesirables, they keep oozing back over the border =( [/QUOTE] What do the Roma do exactly that makes them so unpopular in France (and, I presume, other European countries)? Is it just dislike, or do they do something to piss off the locals? -XT ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/9 "2010-08-22T22:11:58Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > And what with the Schengen open borders, it would be pretty much impossible to stop them coming in in the first place. Romania’s not a Schengen country - yet. ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/10 "2010-08-22T22:39:33Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > What do the Roma do exactly that makes them so unpopular in France (and, I presume, other European countries)? Is it just dislike, or do they do something to piss off the locals? Wikipedia re “[Antiziganism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiziganism)” (anti-Roma-ism) > [@](#): > > As an endogamous culture with a tendency to practise self-segregation, the Romanis have generally resisted assimilation with the indigenous communities of whichever countries they have moved to; they have thus successfully preserved their distinctive and unique culture. > > The price of this cultural longevity however, has been a degree of isolation from the surrounding population that has made them vulnerable to being stereotyped as thieves, tramps, con men and fortune tellers… ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/11 "2010-08-22T22:41:13Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Romania’s not a Schengen country - yet. The Roma – a.k.a. the [Romani](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people), formerly called “Gypsies” – aren’t from Romania. ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/12 "2010-08-22T22:47:08Z")
… though it looks like the ones specifically mentioned in the OP’s article are…:smack: ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/13 "2010-08-22T22:53:31Z")
The deal is : 1. There has been a riot by a group of Roms in a small town (they attacked the police station, destroyed property, etc…) 2. This come after other serious incidents unrelated with Roms 3. Long before he had been elected as President, and also since he has been, one of Sarkozy’s main “selling point” was a hard stance about crime, public safety, etc… It hasn’t exactly been a success. 4)Sarkozy is at a record low in popularity for a variety of reasons (some months ago, he got the lowest level of positive opinions ever since the beginning of the fifth republic) So, he again embarked on a crusade against criminals, this time targeting Roms (note that at about the same time he’s proposing too to remove French citizenship for some categories of criminals. So, it’s not just Roms, it’s more general). One can guess that he’s also looking towards the “front national” (far right) electorate with these proposals. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/14 "2010-08-22T22:59:56Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > What do the Roma do exactly that makes them so unpopular in France (and, I presume, other European countries)? Is it just dislike, or do they do something to piss off the locals? > > -XT It’s kind of a vicious circle. There’s historically been a lot of prejudice against the Roman, which has had the effect of making them, as a group, poor, insular, and suspicious of _gadje_ (non-Roma). So they keep to themselves, and because they’re poor, and don’t really trust _gadje_ or _gadje_ institutions, they don’t tend to send their kids to school, and those Roma kids who do go to school tend to get singled out and harassed because they’re Roma. So Roma tend not to be educated which means they stay poor, which also means there’s a higher rate of petty criminality and begging, which helps contribute to negative attitudes about the Roma. As Dr. Ian Hancock puts it: > [@](#): > > From the beginning, Europeans were aware of the presence of the Romanies and viewed us as a foreign, undesirable population—like the Jews, we were the quintessential outsiders. Romanies were non-Christian and associated with the Islamic threat, were non-white and were on the margins of society. A large part of the problem has been a separation that occurred because of both internal and external factors. There were and still are laws imposed to keep Romanies segregated, and there are internal forces in the Romani culture that keep us from mingling and getting too close to people outside our group or society. . . . > > I dropped out of high school in the 9th grade to go to work. That was very common. No one in my family could read or write and none of them had gone to school. I did realize that we were different. You couldn’t NOT realize that. As a child, I wondered about relatives who were frequently evicted and treated badly by the law. When I was young I just accepted the fact that that was what white people did to people like us, that there’s this seemingly bottomless human desire for a scapegoat and that we were the scapegoats. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/15 "2010-08-22T23:12:47Z")
In a nutshell : the President has started his own Campaign to re-elect the President. As **clairobscur** says, he’s in a rut, hasn’t done or said something with pizzaz in a while, so he’s trying to buff up his “tough on crime” cred to court right wing voters, including those that are a bit too far right. He (and his minister of the Interior) are also talking about removing French citizenship from criminals who target cops, about sending the father to jail if the son commits a crime and is a minor, and about presumption of guilt in some situations. Most or all of these items run against the Constitution, but it doesn’t seem to faze them too much. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/16 "2010-08-22T23:29:40Z")
I think it’s far too simplistic to treat it as some sort of deep-seated hatred of the Roma. In many places in Western Europe the longstanding Roma population have long been integrated in to soceity some much as to become completely invisible. These very poor communties, with a deep-seated sense of isolation from the rest of soceity do bring social problems with them, far beyond the usual social problems encountered in immigrant soceities. Visible Roma popualtions in England are a very, very recent development, infact too recent to have even properly enterd the general public conscious. Though they have caused some social problems in the areas where they have been. We do have a long standing population of Shelta (Irish travellers) and they can cause massive social problems, especially when they enter small communities and it’s probably for this reason they are reviled by many. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/17 "2010-08-22T23:35:51Z")
I hadn’t even imagined the Roma would not consider themselves white. Do they really think their marginalization is because of the color of their skin? I know rednecks with a tan who are darker than typical Gypsies. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/18 "2010-08-22T23:53:40Z")
> [@These are my own pants](#): > > Visible Roma popualtions in England are a very, very recent development, infact too recent to have even properly enterd the general public conscious. Though they have caused some social problems in the areas where they have been. We do have a long standing population of Shelta (Irish travellers) and they can cause massive social problems, especially when they enter small communities and it’s probably for this reason they are reviled by many. The Romanchal have been in Britain since at least the 16th century, and Henry VIII actually passed a law, the Egyptians Act, trying to expel them in 1533. It was amended in 1554 saying that all Romanchal who didn’t have a “settled lifestyle” were expelled under penalty of death. Hancock writes about discrimination growing up in the 1950s, and he explains that he first became active in Romani activism after hearing about this story, which took place in the 1960s. > [@](#): > > During that time there was one particular story that managed to find a small spot in the news—a Romani family had been pulled over to the side of the road by the police, and the husband refused to move the trailer they were in when the police told him to. He informed the policeman that his wife had gone into labor and that it was impossible to move her. The police brought in a bulldozer and started rocking and jarring the trailer. A kerosene lamp inside fell and the trailer went up in flames, the wife miscarried and her two children died in the ensuing blaze. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/19 "2010-08-23T00:07:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > [@These are my own pants](#): > > > > Visible Roma popualtions in England are a very, very recent development, infact too recent to have even properly enterd the general public conscious. Though they have caused some social problems in the areas where they have been. We do have a long standing population of Shelta (Irish travellers) and they can cause massive social problems, especially when they enter small communities and it’s probably for this reason they are reviled by many. > > The Romanchal have been in Britain since at least the 16th century, and Henry VIII actually passed a law, the Egyptians Act, trying to expel them in 1533. It was amended in 1554 saying that all Romanchal who didn’t have a “settled lifestyle” were expelled under penalty of death. > > Hancock writes about discrimination growing up in the 1950s, and he explains that he first became active in Romani activism after hearing about this story, which took place in the 1960s. > > > [@](#): > > > > During that time there was one particular story that managed to find a small spot in the news—a Romani family had been pulled over to the side of the road by the police, and the husband refused to move the trailer they were in when the police told him to. He informed the policeman that his wife had gone into labor and that it was impossible to move her. The police brought in a bulldozer and started rocking and jarring the trailer. A kerosene lamp inside fell and the trailer went up in flames, the wife miscarried and her two children died in the ensuing blaze. Yes, I’m aware there is a long-standing Roma populaion in Britain, but as I said they have been fairly well integrated since the 1960s. Tales of ‘Didicoys’ (English Roma) seem like anachronisms from the 1950s, where as tales of the exploits of the ‘Pikeys’ (a disparaging term mainly applied to the Shelta) are the modern day equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752/20 "2010-08-23T00:27:46Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > He (and his minister of the Interior) are also talking about removing French citizenship from criminals who target cops, about sending the father to jail if the son commits a crime and is a minor, and about presumption of guilt in some situations. Most or all of these items run against the Constitution, but it doesn’t seem to faze them too much. Okay, the loss of citizenship and the presumption of guilt things I can understand. There’s people in the US who would be for that too. But how would the father going to jail for the son thing work? Could a minor commit a crime to spite their father? If it’s a daughter does the mother go? Will it require some sort of social services visit/interview to determine if the father is even involved with the child and if the child would be upset at seeing the father being the fall guy? Is there a class of juvenile deliquents who don’t care if they get in trouble but would be detered if their parents took the punishment instead? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-dopers-whats-the-deal-with-the-roma/550752.md?page=2)