08.08.2014 Plombières: Rroma pursued by the authorities demand a break

Barret (2014) reports on the fate of around 60 Rroma, a third of them children, who are being hunted by the police through the streets of Marseille since the eviction of the informal settlement of Plombières on July the 24th. As soon as they have settled in one place, they are already again disturbed by the police forces. The homeless demand a break from the governmental persecution. Aid agencies criticise that many of those affected are totally exhausted. The organization Arte Chavalo asks for a temporary moratorium of the police evictions until an appropriate site for the accommodation of the 60 persons is found: ““Not a single day goes by without the police coming and expelling them from a small piece of land, where they have sat down. Day and night they are hunted and the police have been ordered to not give them any rest until they have left the city”, the activist of Arte Chavalo explains about the families that each morning get evicted from another car park and another place nearby the Boulevard de Plombières. “We condemn the discriminatory policy which is waged against them and which causes serious risks and disturbances to the public order for the population as a whole, of which children and innocent people are affected”” (Journal La Marseillaise 2014). The municipality of Marseille is required to end this senseless hunt and to provide the displaced families with reasonable accommodation in order to enable the aid agencies to resume their work, it is stated (compare Vinzent 2014).