France on a Collision Course with Europe Over its Evictions Policy
18 March 2016
Budapest, 18 March 2016: Since the beginning of the year 2,582 Roma have been forcibly evicted in France: that’s almost 300 each week. These evictions are conducted contrary to France’s own standards, as well as France’s European and international human rights obligations, setting France on a collision course with the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights, and other institutions.
The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) today sent a letter to the Minister of Interior demanding an end to these evictions and promising to support the victims of France’s unlawful and discriminatory evictions policy to take their cases to the European courts and other institutions.
"How will my children go to school when we are constantly evicted from the places we live?” – says Florina, a Romani woman whose family has been evicted several times.
The ERRC and the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH) recorded 19 forced evictions during the first two months of this year. French and international standards require the authorities to offer those being evicted alternative accommodation. But it often does not happen: only in 11 evictions was any emergency shelter arranged, and even then it was only for some of those being evicted.
This policy is not only pointless; it is also unlawful. Several cases are already pending in front of the European Court of Human Rights and there will be more. NGOs are calling on the European Commission to take action against France under EU law, which prohibits racial harassment of this kind.
In the meantime, the number of Roma being evicted is still expected to grow. Only last week, more than a thousand people were left on the streets of Roubaix, Marseille, Nantes, and the Paris region (Île-de-France). The French authorities make a point of pride of being more lenient in the winter, which means that this summer might see record numbers evicted.
The ERRC asked the Minister to stop these forced evictions, to secure the safety and welfare of those living in slums, and to find long-term housing solutions for those living there. The ERRC offered to talk to the Minister to provide him with information about how the officials under his control are behaving, given his inaccurate insistence that the evictions follow the rules set out in his Ministry’s guidelines.
For further information contact:
Radost Zaharieva
ERRC monitor
radost.zaharieva@errc.org
0033 7 61 06 06 78
