Integrating or Segregating Roma Migrants in France in the Name of Respect: A Spatial Analysis of the Villages D’Insertion

ABSTRACT:

The French republican model has long promoted an individualist, universal and difference-blind conception of citizenship. Yet the sociological and historical reality of decolonization and immigration has strained the coherence of this conception and helped to reveal the tension between the universalism of republican principles and the particularistic application of such principles to a specific nation, defined in political and territorial terms. One limit of this model is particularly visible in the spatial management of immigration and segregation trends. Indeed, while French urban planning officially rejects any policies explicitly directed at ethnic minorities, preferring to address social inequalities in spatial terms, it has not prevented French society from pursuing a strict and enduring process of ethno-racial segregation. Recently, the traditional universalist position has faced a new dilemma with regard to the social and spatial treatment of the Romani populations that have settled in France since the early 2000s. Local authorities have adopted various measures to accommodate and “manage” these populations through specific spatial and administrative devices, some of which are called villages or inclusion villages (villages d’insertion). This article offers a spatial and political analysis of such local policies, focusing on three main ambiguities that characterize this urban device—security function, integrative role, and ethno-cultural component. The authors show that the villages d’insertion offer a paradigmatic situation in which the usual scales and frames of justice get blurred, and call for a new conception of citizenship, required to promote equal respect to all populations.

Notes

A possible English translation could be also “integration villages,” but we have chosen to keep the term in French because of its complex semantic connotations associating integration and inclusion in the treatment of immigrant populations (Boucher, ).

Romeurope report “‘Roms migrants’ en Ile de France” (Rapport_habitat_IDF_DEF.pdf). In 2005, the Ile-de-France region voted special conditional “assistance for the eradication of shanty towns” with a budget of 500,000 euro per project.

See http://rroms.blogspot.com/, and particularly the link to the pages about the villages d’insertion: Villages d’insertion: la grande arnaque, http://villagedinsertion.blogspot.com/

Villages d’insertion et cochon d’Inde (Villages d’insertion and Guinea Pigs), 2010/07/12, http://villagedinsertion.blogspot.com

Interviews with social workers at Montreuil’s sites and an interview with the coordinator of Action Tzigane at the Rues et cités CSO in Montreuil.

A Romanian or Bulgarian citizen is not allowed to stay in France for more than three months unless he or she fulfills one of the three following conditions: 1. being professionally employed; 2. having the economic resources necessary to take care of oneself and one’s family; 3. being a student.

Interviews with the ALJ project manager for the Montreuil site, a town councilor from Aubervilliers in charge of the social economy (Economie solidaire), and the project leader in charge of MOUS-Rom for the municipality of Montreuil.

Interview with the 9th Vice President of the Plaine Commune inter-urban partnership in Seine-Saint-Denis.

This conception is based on Article 1 of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, according to which the republic is “indivisible.”

Although the name Roma (les Roms) has been adopted by many as a unifying term since the first World Romani Congress organized in London in 1971, the word Tsigane is also commonly used in French to designate all Romani-speaking groups and/or highlight the social issues that affect this population. The French federation of representative organizations is thus named L’Union Française des Associations Tsiganes (the French Union of Tzigane Associations).

CNIL Report (edited on 2010/11/25; public access granted on 2011/03/30).

From 1912 to 1972, “nomads” had to carry “anthropometric documents” with them at all times; since 1972 (application of the 1969 law), Travellers have been required to have “travel documents” with them at all times and report regularly to police stations to have their documents stamped (Noiriel, ). Since 1990, French municipalities with over 5,000 inhabitants have a legal obligation to allocate a piece of land for these populations to settle. Called Designated Traveller Sites (Aires d’accueil pour Gens du voyage), these places were first designed as a protective measure.

Directive 2004/58/EC of the European Parliament and Council (2004/04/29).

This directive was implemented in France in various and successive ways: the INTD0600115C (2006/12/22) circular explicitly states its application to Bulgarian and Romanian nationals.

Under directive 2004/58/EC, expulsion is possible when a person represents an “unreasonable burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State” (art. 16), but only after careful examination of the person’s personal situation; moreover, the measure cannot be an automatic consequence of seeking recourse from a social assistance system.

Law #2006–911 of 2006/07/24 on immigration and integration. The notion had existed in community law since the 1990s, but had not yet been translated into French law (GISTI, ).

Circular NOR INT/D/06/00115/C of the Ministry of the Interior of 2006/12/22 on “conditions for admission for residency and expulsion of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens from 2007/01/01.”

The French Council of State, in its November 26, 2008 decision, partially annulled the circular on this basis before recognizing in another decision the legality of the disposition.

Inter-ministerial circular DPM/ACI3/2006/522 (2006, December 7) on support mechanisms for illegal foreigners or materially deprived persons.

In 2006, of the 24,000 expulsions carried out by French police, about 6,000 involved Romanians or Bulgarians, mostly Roma (Romeurope, , p. 45; CNCDH, , p. 18). The conditions of these expulsions were such that many families agreed to leave the country rather than fight for their rights; they were as such considered to be voluntary returnees. In 2008, 8,470 Romanians were expelled, that is, about a third of all expulsions (cf. www.lagazettedescommunes.com).

On July 28, 2010, the government declared at an interdepartmental meeting that they wished to address “problems caused by the behavior of some Roma and Travellers” and targeted “illicit encampments.” New explicit guidelines were adopted to explain how to “fight against illicit encampments” and the legal risks were underlined. On August 5, 2010, a new text from the Ministry of the Interior stated that “the President fixed specific objectives on July 28th with regard to the evacuation of illicit encampments: 300 such camps must be evacuated within the next three months and, as a priority, Roma encampments. … Operations led since July 28th against illicit Roma encampments have produced a limited number of people escorted to the border.” Illicit Roma encampments, as distinguished from legal “Travellers’ encampments,” had to be systematically identified and “regional Prefects must make sure that at least one major operation (evacuation, destruction or expulsion) is conducted each week and against the Roma as a priority” (Circular IOCK 1017881J of the Ministry of Interior of 2010/08/05).

See Reding’s speech on September 14, 2010. Quoted in Libération: Roms: La Commission veut ouvrir une procédure d’infraction contre la France, www.liberation.fr/societe/01012290086-roms-la-commission-europeenne-ouvre-une-procedure-d-infraction-contre-la-france, accessed June 10, 2011.

Interview with an ALJ project manager working in Montreuil’s villages d’insertion.

When consulted about the limit of 80 residents set in Aubervilliers, public actors generally justify this by referring to a “threshold of toleration,” suggesting that being under the symbolic limit of 100 people helps tame the anti-Roma xenophobia in public opinion and ease fears of “invasion.”

This analysis can also be extended to some colonial and postcolonial populations, refugees since the 1930s, and the Harkis after the independence of Algeria, among others, since these immigrants often settled in France at specific segregated places, analyzed by Bernardot as camps d’étrangers (foreigner camps) in his historical study of such policies (Bernardot, ).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Magali Bessone

Magali Bessone, PhD, a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, is currently Assistant-Professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Rennes 1, France. Her research focuses on contemporary race relations, racism and discriminations, as well as international criminal justice and international ethics. Her recent publications include “Multiculturalisme et construction nationale: le cas de la Bosnie-Herzégovine,” Raisons Politiques (2010) and “Beyond Multicultural Toleration,” European Journal of Political Theory (forthcoming 2013). She co-edited (with G. Calder and F. Zuolo) How Groups Matter? Challenges of Toleration in Pluralistic Societies (Routledge, forthcoming 2013). Her books include La naissance de la République américaine (Michel Houdiard, 2007) and « Sans distinction de race » – Une analyse philosophique du dilemme français (Vrin, forthcoming 2012).

Milena Doytcheva

Milena Doytcheva (PhD of Sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales – Paris, France) is currently assistant professor at the University of Lille 3 – Nord de France. Her more recent researches focus on antidiscrimination policies especially on work places and the spread and uses in this context of conceptions of diversity. She has recently published: “Usages français de la notion de diversité, permanence et actualité d’un débat” (Sociologie, n°4, 2010); Le Multiculturalisme (Paris, La Découverte, 2011, 2ème éd.); Une discrimination positive à la française? Ethnicité et territoire dans les politiques de la ville (Paris, La Découverte, 2007).

Jean-Baptiste Duez

Jean-Baptiste Duez holds a PhD in social anthropology, EHESS, Paris. He wrote his thesis upon alpinists in Europe, and defended it in 2007. At the end of the year 2007 he met some romani families at the North of Paris, and started to follow them as they were being expelled from a shantytown to another. In 2010–2011 he was a postdoctoral fellow in a FP7 European Commission program, RESPECT, that concerned the discrimination and distribution of public space. He studies the contradictory realities endured within these last years by the people coming from Romania, and is a member of the European academic network on Romani studies.

Charles Girard

Charles Girard is Assistant Professor at the University of Paris 4 Sorbonne. A former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, he holds a PhD in political philosophy from Université of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He works on democratic theory and on issues related to public deliberation. He has recently edited, with A. Le Goff, La démocratie délibérative (Paris, Hermann, 2010); and, with F. Hulak, Philosophie des sciences humaines (Paris, Vrin, 2011).

Sophie Guérard De Latour

Sophie Guérard de Latour is a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. She obtained her PhD in 2005 at the University of Bordeaux3- Michel de Montaigne. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne and works on multicultural issues related to theories of justice and of democratic citizenship, with a more specific focus on republicanism. She has published two books La société juste: égalité et différence (Paris, A. Colin, 2001) and Vers la république des différences (Toulouse, Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2009).