Expelled Roma Gypsies vow to return to France
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Many Roma immigrants refused to accept the 300 euros to return to Romania, and the French authorities have initiated legal proceedings to obtain court orders to repatriate them, Vasile said.
"This is an abusive measure taken by the French authorities," he stressed, suggesting that the French government staged such a strong position possibly with an eye on the next election, just like what happened in Italy last year.
![Romanian Roma people coming from France are pictured as they arrive at the Baneasa airport in Bucharest August 19, 2010. [Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100820/000cf1bdd03f0dd8696157.jpg "Romanian Roma people coming from France are pictured as they arrive at the Baneasa airport in Bucharest August 19, 2010. [Xinhua]") |
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Romanian Roma people coming from France are pictured as they arrive at the Baneasa airport in Bucharest August 19, 2010. [Xinhua] |
The Romanian government has special strategies and policies to integrate Roma ethnics into local society. But in practice, the efforts are largely futile, which analysts attributed to insufficient action by the government and the reclusive Roma traditions.
Official figures show that Romania has 537,000 Roma ethnics, but representatives of this minority group said the real number might be 2 million, nearly 10 percent of the country's population.
Roma people consider themselves as being discriminated against in Romania as well as elsewhere. Due to different living conditions, many Roma people choose to leave Romania.
The French authorities just offered a paid holiday for the expelled Roma people, said Ilie Dinca, head of Romania's National Agency for Roma, with an apparently ironic tone.
"They come over a week or two and will go back there in France," he said.
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