Roma evicted from Paris camp

05 September 1999

On July 19, 1999, police expelled approximately one hundred Romanian Roma from a camp near Paris, where they had been living on an industrial waste site. The French daily Le Monde, informed that they were moved to the region of Val-d?se, just north of Paris. Le Monde also wrote on July 15, 1999 that tensions were high in the Finistere region of France as approximately one hundred Romani caravans stopped near the village of Kerema, approximately fifty kilometres north of the town of Brest in Brittany. The residents of the town had reportedly closed their shops early and were staying away from normally busy common areas, because they were afraid of the Roma. One woman had a canister of tear gas ready in case "the Manouches [a French Romani group] attack me". One villager reportedly said, "If we welcome them, they will return." The Roma were in the area to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their evangelical mission and planned to baptise their children in the sea on Sunday, July 18.

(ERRC, Le Monde)