It is a sad world when France is more strict on it's Roma Gypsie problem than the USA is on it's southern border problem. We now live in upside down world. OR, the French are waking up to the impending demographic doom. Yeah, upside down world.
I don't blame France for expelling these people. Thieves. Vandals. Send 'em home. That's not harming them.
BRUSSELS: All eyes are on the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, as Europe kicks off an explosive summit overshadowed by a slanging match over France's expulsion of Roma Gypsies.
While leaders are also wrestling with cross-border sanctions for budget spendthrifts, favours for flood-devastated Pakistan and a sickly-sweet trade deal with South Korea, Mr Sarkozy's first utterance is the one they are all waiting for.
The row turned personal on Wednesday after a top European Union official compared France's hard line on travellers to the tactics of its World War II pro-Nazi regime. (Typical prog, everything you disagree with is "nazi" - Kirls)
Mr Sarkozy responded by suggesting the European Commissioner offer to host expelled Gypsies in her country of Luxembourg. (Now that's a response! Can you imagine 0bama saying anything so gutsy? yeah, neither can i - Kirls)
France has attacked Viviane Reding, a Luxembourger and the EU's Justice Commissioner, after she threatened legal action over Mr Sarkozy's policy of expelling the Roma.
She said it was a ''disgrace'' that reminded her of World War II round-ups of Gypsies and Jews.
''A cash handout, a plane ticket to the EU country of origin are not the same as the death camps, the gas chambers,'' France's European Affairs Minister, Pierre Lellouche, snapped back.
''As he will explain tomorrow, it's scandalous,'' a French senator, Bruno Sido, added after lunching with Mr Sarkozy, the son of an Hungarian immigrant.
France is ''irreproachable'', Mr Sarkozy was quoted as telling party allies, adding ''if the Luxembourgers wanted to take them, he had no problem''.
Paris faces legal action over its controversial drive to deport ethnic Roma, living in travelling communities, back to Romania and Bulgaria.
But a diplomat warned that the European Commission, whose justice supremo Ms Reding unleashed the storm, ''doesn't always win at the European Court of Justice''.
He said: ''Our argument is sound.''
The Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn, attacked the reported Sarkozy jibe as ''malicious''.
Finally, Ms Reding, in a bid to smooth out tensions, contacted Agence France-Presse to express ''regret''.
She insisted: ''I in no way wanted to draw a parallel between World War II and the actions of the French government today.''
An EU founder member, France is fiercely proud of its historic legacy as the home of human rights.
The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, for his part, was happy to argue that ''the problem of the Roma concerns every country in Europe''.
Italy had its brush with the commission in 2008 when it started to register Roma living in camps, taking fingerprints and documenting their ethnicity and religion.
The heightened atmosphere could easily infect other existing divisions.
The EU chief, Herman Van Rompuy, stands charged by Berlin with producing only ''nebulous'' ideas for clipping countries whose spending blitzes threaten a shared euro economy.
''Germany backs severe sanctions,'' the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said at tactical talks with centre-right allies in Brussels.
As seen by Slovakia wriggling out of a commitment to loan Greece money - an uncomfortable truth euro chiefs prefer to ignore - momentum has faded since May when EU bosses trumpeted a ''trillion-dollar'' rescue war-chest.
''Intensive work'' was required if decisions slated for next month were to live up to Mr Van Rompuy's launch fanfare, one diplomat said.
The International Monetary Fund chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who must throw in one euro for every two the EU throws at its difficult economies, also wants ''courageous measures''.
Otherwise, Europe will ''no longer be able to compete with the world's most dynamic countries'', he said.
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