Protests in France over Roma girl expulsion

Thousands of French teenagers have blockaded entrances to their schools and marched through Paris to protest the expulsions of immigrant families, including some of their classmates.

Police sprayed tear gas on Thursday at a few students throwing projectiles but most marched peacefully, some climbing on bus shelters to shout demands for the interior minister’s resignation.

At one high school in Paris, students piled green garbage cans in front of the entrance and hung a banner saying “Education in Danger.”

Thousands of French students took the streets in Paris to protest expulsions of migrant students [Reuters]

The protests came following the deportation of 15-year-old Roma girl Leonarda Dibrani after she was detained during a field trip.  

The protesters tried to march to the Interior Ministry, but were blocked by riot police with shields and helmets. They diverted the march and dispersed peacefully.

The incident

Leonarda Dibrani was finishing up a school field trip when French police showed up at the bus, detaining her before she was expelled by the authorities to Kosovo because her family’s asylum application had been repeatedly rejected.

The incident, which happened earlier this month but made public on Wednesday by an NGO that campaigns against the expulsion of school-age children, has sparked outrage from immigrant groups who say police went too far in publicly shaming the teenager.

The circumstances surrounding the arrest remained unclear, but both the interior ministry’s version and the account of a teacher agree that her arrest did not take place in view of other pupils.

However, the teacher who gave her account via the Network for Education without Borders (RESF) claimed that the other children were fully aware of what was happening and were deeply distressed by the incident.

“All my friends and my teacher were crying, some of them asked me if I had killed someone or stolen something as the police were looking for me. When the police reached the bus they told me to get out and that I had to go back to Kosovo,” said Diprani.

Diprani’s father, Reshat, who was expelled to Kosovo a day before his daughter was arrested said that the family had been victimised because of their ethnicity.

“There are bad refugees in France who get papers easily – we didn’t do anything bad. They did it to us because we are Roma. We would be treated differently if our skin was a different colour,” he said.

Now, Diprani says she just wants to go back to France.

“I’m frightened, I don’t speak Albanian. My life is in France. I don’t want to go to school here because I don’t speak any of the local languages. I had freedom there. I do not want to stay here,” Diprani told AFP news agency in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica, where the family has been given temporary housing by local authorities.

The ministry said the family repeatedly refused to leave and says that they met the girl’s school bus when it returned from the field trip.

Claude Bartolone, the speaker of the National Assembly, underlined the extent of the concerns in the Socialist camp over the case.

“There is the law but there are also values on which the left must never compromise,” he said in a tweet.

“School has to be a sanctuary, we have to retain our principles based on rights and humanity,” said Education Minister Vincent Peillon.

The controversy follows an outcry last month over remarks by Valls in which he said most of the 20,000 Roma in France had no intention of integrating and should be sent back to their countries of origin.

Polls have suggested as many as three in four French voters support that stance and Valls, who is one of France’s most popular politicians, has enjoyed a surge in his standing as a result of comments regarded as racist by his critics.

President Francois Hollande has not yet made any public statement on the row, prompting opposition accusations the government was in chaos.