18.06.2014 Lynching of a Rroma in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine

Many newspapers report a case of lynching in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. Neighbours of a local Rroma settlement accused a sixteen-year-old Rrom to have broken into one of their apartments. The group penetrated into the camp and abducted the young man with violence. They locked him in a basement and beat him severely. He was found along the National Road One on June 13th, lying unconscious in a supermarket shopping cart. His condition is critical; he is in a coma: “According to the current status of the investigations, that have been entrusted to the criminal investigation department of Seine-Saint-Denis, the prosecution of Bobigny remains cautious about the facts and the motives of the perpetrators. What is known is that a group of individuals arrived at camp where Darius and his family lived, late afternoon on Friday. According to a witness, the group was in possession of long weapons and opened fire around 17:30 without hurting anyone, before abducting the adolescent into a Clio” (Seelow 2014). The mother of the adolescent notified the police after the abduction of the boy. The victim was detained several times by the police for theft offenses. Lynch-law against minors is severely punished by the French judiciary. A couple, who had imprisoned and abused a fourteen-year-old thief in Toulouse for hours, was sentenced to three years in prison. However, until now, none of the perpetrators of this abuse has been arrested. Representatives of various organizations see the act as symptomatic of the increased intolerance towards Rroma in France. At the last European elections, the right-wing nationalist and repeatedly xenophobic National Front achieved a new high in votes. This act was preceded by a series of car break-ins, which the resident blamed the Rroma for. According to Libération (2014), the inhabitants of the local Rroma settlement have left their home precipitately. Ironically, Manuel Valls, who was repeatedly blamed for racist remarks against Rroma, condemned the incident decidedly and asked for an immediate arrest of the perpetrators (compare BBC News 2014, 20 minutes 2014, Le Figaro 2014, Le Monde 2014 I/II, Le Parisien 2014, Rollot 2014, Seelow 2014, Vincent 2014).