French Embassy Disproves New Repatriation of Bulgarian Roma

People from the second group of Bulgarian Roma deported from France are hiding their faces from the camera at Sofia Airport, Aug. 25. Photo by BGNES

The French Embassy in Sofia has told Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) that no arrivals of Roma repatriated from France are expected on Friday.

"The Embassy of France in Bulgaria would like to clarify that no arrivals of Bulgarian citizens with invalid documents has been scheduled for today," the Embassy told Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) repudiating earlier reports in the Bulgarian media about the arrival of a third group of Bulgarian Roma from France.

Friday morning's reports said 12 more Bulgarian Roma will be arriving from France in the afternoon.

France deported the first group of Bulgarian Roma on August 20, and the second – five days later. According to the Foreign Ministry, the people left at their own will against EUR 300 per adult and EUR 100 per child as assistance from the French government.

A total of 41 Bulgarian Roma and 700 Romanian Roma are supposed to be deported from France by the end of the year.

At the end of July, French Foreign Minister, Brice Hortefeux, vowed to dismantle half of the illegal Roma camps in the country in three months and to sent all who have violated the law in any way back to Bulgaria and Romania.

The measures of the French authorities triggered strong and controversial reactions. They were backed by Italy's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni while many in Western Europe voiced stark criticism towards Romania for failing to integrate the Roma, to the extend the European Commission proposed to halt some of the weakest projects.

EC and the Council of Europe appealed to France to observe human rights and the rights of all EU citizens.

The European Parliament also demanded in a resolution, approved on Thursday, that France should "immediately" suspend its Roma-expulsion policy.

EU lawmakers expressed "deep concern" for measures "taken by French authorities and by other (EU) member states authorities" and urged "those authorities immediately to suspend all expulsions of Roma."

The also called on the EU's executive, the European Commission, on the Council of EU states and on individual EU governments "to intervene with the same request."

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