France censured over Roma expulsions
France has defied mounting international criticism of its crackdown on Roma Gypsy immigrants and is continuing to deport them.
A plane with around 130 Roma on board left an airport in Paris for Romania on Friday, AFP reported a day after 86 others left the country due to the so-called "voluntary return procedure."
The French opposition has accused President Nicholas Sarkozy’s government of "state racism."
A lawyer for the Roma minority in the country has also condemned the deportations, saying there is enormous discrimination.
The Vatican has censured Paris for the "illegal" deportations. Agostino Marchetto, the secretary of the papacy’s Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, said on Friday that France could not generalize and kick out entire groups of people.