Nicolas Sarkozy to foreign-born French: Target police and lose your citizenship

Ruling party officials say new measures are needed to counter increasing security threats, but critics say France's President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to change the subject from a series of scandals that have rocked his presidency.

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The National Front itself issued a statement saying the only “merit” in Sarkozy’s citizenship-stripping proposal was to confirm a “strong link between crime and certain immigrants,” but that it fell short of swift deportations of immigrants. Mr. Le Pen stated separately that, “With Mr. Sarkozy it's always words, words, words” – and called for a reestablishing of courts that can serve jail time and expulsion for residents (not citizens) who commit crimes.

The 'Gypsy question'

Last week’s crackdown on Gypsies came as Sarkozy’s approval ratings are in the low 30s, and following petty corruption scandals among ministers, a “Bettencourt affair” that ties a senior minister to alleged tax evasions by France’s wealthiest woman, and overall public economic disenchantment.

At a July 28 palace meeting on the Gypsy question, to which Gypsy representatives were not invited, Sarkozy took a tough line on Gypsies who commit crime, particularly those who travel to France from Romania and Bulgaria under a special agreement. French authorities plan to send “tax inspectors” to French Gypsy camps to investigate income sources for “large-cylinder autos” like Mercedes and BMWs.

France has some 400,000 Gypsies, called “traveling persons,” and is host to roughly 15,000 Gypsies from Bulgaria and Romania known here as “Roma.” This month brought rioting by young Gypsies at a police station after police shot a French Gypsy wanted for stealing who had refused to stop at a roadblock.

The focus and strictures on Gypsies by Sarkozy has caused considerable worry inside the Roma community.

Michel Lambert, vice-president of a Gypsy association in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, says “the effect of Sarkozy’s declaration is that when we go door to door, when we take our things to the markets, people are less sympathetic. Now people will be more afraid of us, we will be further stereotyped. We didn’t need that; we already had enough problems.”

Yesterday also brought release of a July 21 videotape of some 60 African immigrants, said to be from the Ivory Coast, being evicted from their homes in order to clear the way for new public housing.

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