This article will give you an even greater sense of the ugly atmosphere in france today, and indeed the world as a whole.....The world cries out for Revolution.
The refusal of a right-leaning mayor to allow the burial of a Roma infant in his town has provoked outrage in France. The nation’s human-rights ombudsman, Jacques Toubon, said the incident “shocked and stunned” him and announced an investigation into the matter. Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared on Twitter that refusing a burial plot to the infant was an “insult to what France is.” Even the leader of the National Front party, Marine Le Pen, prone to inflammatory remarks about foreigners, said the refusal to bury the child showed a “lack of humanity.”
These howls of righteous indignation ring hollow. Discriminatory actions and remarks are increasingly tolerated in France. Mr. Valls himself said, when he was interior minister in 2013, that Roma from Bulgaria and Romania can never be integrated into French society and should return to their countries of origin.
The sad fact is that the Socialist government of President François Hollande has pursued the same unacceptable policies of forced evictions and deportations of the Roma as Mr. Hollande’s center-right predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. France evicted more than 19,000 Roma from their improvised homes in 2013 — twice as many as in 2012 — and deported some 11,000.
The family of 2-month-old Maria Francesca, who succumbed to sudden infant death syndrome on Dec. 25, lived in a shantytown without running water, electricity or garbage collection. Their Roma community in Champlan had previously been evicted from the nearby municipalities of Massy and Wissous. The mayor of Champlan, Christian Leclerc, argued that burial space was reserved for local taxpayers and that the Roma family, as nonresidents, had no right to a plot. Mr. Leclerc later apologized to the family. Maria Francesca was buried on Monday in Wissous.
The European Union is projected to allocate nearly 16 billion euros to France between 2014 and 2020, in part to help finance Roma-related initiatives, including combating poverty, discrimination and social exclusion. Mr. Hollande’s government needs to put its mouth where the money is, stop hounding the Roma and end discrimination.
