An internal memo sent to employees of the police precinct of Paris’s 6th district calling for the removal of homeless Roma families from the affluent neighbourhood has been “rectified”, France’s interior ministry announced on Tuesday, reports FRANCE 24.
The memo, unveiled by French daily newspaper Le Parisien, provoked the ire of French anti-racism associations.
The interior ministry’s statement on Tuesday noted that “No police officer may target an individual because of his or her real or presumed nationality.”
Interviewed by Le Parisien, the district’s right-wing UMP mayor, Jean-Pierre Lecoq, defended the memo, arguing that it was intended to prevent young children, including babies, from sleeping in the street – a phenomenon he called “unacceptable on both human and social levels”.
But French group SOS Racisme released a strongly worded statement slamming the memo in light of rising discrimination against Roma communities throughout Europe.
“This amounts to a kind of violence against Roma, or presumed Roma, populations, who are already victims in France and across the European continent of a stigmatisation that is beyond worrying,” the statement read.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.