Citing "unsanitary and unsecure living conditions," French Interior
Minister Manuel Valls ordered police early Monday to dismantle a Roma
camp set up along suburban railway tracks in Evry, south of Paris, and
expel 72 inhabitants, including 19 children.
It is a controversial
decision for President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party, which
attacked former President Nicolas Sarkozy when his party dismantled Roma
camps around France in 2010. Since the beginning of August, five camps
have been dismantled under Valls' directive.
"I cannot support -- not
just as interior minister, but as a citizen, as a militant member of the
left -- these shantytowns, these huts where people live in conditions
that are totally unbearable," Valls said in an interview with Europe1
radio.
Without giving details,
he said the people will be housed elsewhere and will not be deported.
However, he rejected the idea of housing all the Roma inhabitants in one
building.
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