This will be the second time I've come to criticize the French on a social issue, but it fits well within the trend of issues that have been grabbing my attention in the news lately. To sum up the order in one sentence: President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered all of the Roma population in France to leave, and if they don't, they will be deported.
To be fair, France did not pull this order out of the blue. There have been incidents that have incited public discourse against the Roma (Gypsie) population, including violence against police and others. But France sees only one solution to this problem, and that is to deport them? Apparently, and tragically so.
According to official figures cited on the BBC website, there were over 11,000 deportations last year, and almost 1000 last month alone. Unreal! What if that happened in the United States? Just like across France today, there would be furious protests everywhere. The thing is though - just like the aggressive xenophobic policies that have been proposed in the United States, it appears to have overwhelming public support. Apparently, over half of the French population is in concurrence with this law. Remember, this is the same population that outlawed a basic Islamic practice in wearing the hijab. But at least that has some contextual background in the laicety tradition - the deportation of an entire race of people is straight up xenophobic intolerance.
According to the official definition, the deportation of an entire race of people can sometimes constituted genocide, but I won't go there.
I guess all I can hope for is that the protests are representative of public sentiment, and the French people learn how to get along and finally realize that sometimes they can take their revolutionary ideal of equality a little too far...or not far enough.
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