Warsaw: Demo at French Embassy in Solidarity with Immigrants
Akai47, Śro, 2010-08-11 09:29
English
August 9 there was a picket at the French Embassy in Warsaw against repression of immigrants. The picket was held in response to the French government's violent eviction of African migrants in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve on July 21.
Over 200 people, including 45 children were violently evicted from their squatted housing estate. Most had been living in France for the past three to ten years.
Footage captured by mobile phone showed riot police dragging pregnant women and babies along the ground. (Film can be viewed here) http://www.droitaulogement.org/
Most of the migrants are from the Ivory Coast, a former French colony blighted by a civil war which since 2002 has displaced 800,000 people. [1] Nearly half of the population live below the poverty line [2] and one in ten children suffer from severe malnutrition. [3] Unemployment could be as high as 50% [4]
The French government also plans to expel thousands of sans papiers Roma from the country and to shut down hundreds of informal camps. The plan will also affect 400,000 French Travellers living in vans and camps in the country.
