16.04.2014 Manual Valls has to go back to court

The new Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, must again appear in front of the court. The Rroma organization La Voix des Rroms accuses him of incitement to “discrimination, hatred, and violence” against Rroma. The lawsuit relates to statements that Valls made on the March 14th and on September 24th, 2013 in presence of the French press. He accused Rroma immigrants in France of wilfully not wanting to integrate and stated that there is widespread, intra-ethnic crime amongst them: “The inhabitants of the camps do not want to integrate into our country, for cultural reasons or because they are at the mercy of begging or prostitution networks. […] They have an extremely different lifestyle than we do and are obviously enough on a confrontation course: we all know, the proximity of these camps causes begging and theft and therefore delinquency. […] The Rroma have a tendency to return to Romania and Bulgaria.” Fassin wonders why the lawsuit against Valls has not received any media attention. He explains this lack of interest on the one hand with a focus on his political profile that is characterized by seriousness and rigor, and on the other hand, with the verdict of the French court of December 13th, 2013. This first lawsuit against Valls, filed by the French movement against racism (MRAP), was rejected with the explanation that Valls’ statements were not a minister’s instructions, but personal opinions of the politician: “[the minister] is in the exercise of his function when he is issuing instructions […] but not when he interacts with the media to express his opinion. […] The French Republic does not recognize the concept of race. [He] could only be in the exercise of his functions, if he recommended a different treatment of persons, based on their origin.” Fassin discredits this justification of the French court as absurd. It means that de facto a minister can never possibly speak on behalf of the government in matters relating to racism, but only ever on his own. Thus one allows Manual Valls and other policy makers to enjoy the privilege of fools, while it is denied to the rest of the population, whereby Fassin is absolutely right (Fassin 2014).