30.07.2014 Marseille: last big Rroma settlement evicted

Several French newspapers reported on the eviction of the last big Rroma settlement in Marseille. The camp near the Boulevard de Plombière housed about 150 people. Immediately after the evacuation of the remaining people, excavators started the destruction of the huts. Representatives of the Abbé Pierre Foundation offered the displaced people a one-week accommodation in hotels. The authorities stated to have applied the inter-ministerial circular from August 2012, which requires a social diagnosis before carrying out evictions. Nine families are part of a long-term integration attempt with permanent living quarters and ten families with pregnant women, small children, or old or infirm persons took the offer of temporary shelter. Nevertheless, many people are now homeless (compare Guillaume 2014, Fiorito 2014, Boursoram/AFP). It should be emphasised that the forced evictions of informal settlements significantly complicate the long-term integration of Rroma immigrants. With the evacuations, the problems and the pending integration are simply moved from one location to the next, but not solved. Also, with the media focus on the informal settlements it is suggested that there are only Rroma who are belonging to the lower class and who are poorly educated. However, according to estimates of the Rroma Foundation, there are 100,000 to 500,000 Rroma who are well integrated and live unobtrusively in French society (Rroma Foundation 2014). This majority of the Rroma is totally ignored by the French media, the public and politics.