Farewell Gift Dept: “A lot of people in France have good hearts,” said Ms. Novacovici, a 36-year-old widow whose passable language skills have made her the spokeswoman for the little group of homeless migrants. “But so many look down on us and I don’t understand why.”, according to Globe And Mail. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said police have uprooted 51 illegal Roma camps in the past two weeks and given 700 people expulsion orders. The government has vowed to clear out another 260 camps by the end of October. President Nicolas Sarkozy, in announcing the policy in July, called them eyesores and hotbeds of prostitution and trafficking and it is even less certain now that she and 57 other destitute Romas found shelter last week in a sparkling clean grade-school gym in this small suburban town 12 kilometres from the heart of the capital. As part of a new nationwide crackdown on illegal Roma squats and shantytowns, French police last week dismantled her roadside camp at 6 in the morning, impounded the unregistered vehicles and offered the adults a choice: Go back voluntarily to Romania with a farewell gift of e300 and a plane ticket, they said, or face deportation. As
reported in the news.
@t brice hortefeux, face deportation
17.8.10
