Berlusconi: Milan will be 'full of Muslims and Gypsies' if Left takes power

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi may have outdone even himself with his latest inflammatory comments. Rallying supporters in Milan ahead of local elections later this month, he warned people that if the centre-Left candidate for mayor wins, the city will be handed over to Muslims and Gypsies. According to Italian news agency AKI he told the Milanese,

"Milan can't become, on the eve of the Expo 2015, an Islamic city, a city of Gypsies, full of Roma camps and swamped by foreigners, a city that gives voting rights to immigrants in municipal elections."

The comments, which were not an off-the-cuff remark but rather part of a prepared speech that was also posted on the website of Berlusconi's conservative People of Freedom party, were met with open-mouthed disbelief by the leader of Italy's largest centre-left opposition Democratic Party. "Your words are laughable..you're going to need to wear a burqa to avoid people recognising you in the street," he told the Italian leader.

Is Sarkozy losing it?

Toward the end of today there was a flurry of speculation among the journalists at the summit of EU leaders in Brussels, when word got around that the Bulgarian prime minister was telling people a violent altercation between French president Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso had occurred during lunch. The fight, from the sounds of it, was pretty incredible - apparently Sarkozy was screaming so loudly at Barroso it could be heard all the way down the hall.

The altercation came after Tuesday's shockingly strong condemnation of France's deportation of Roma (gypsies) by Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. Reding had not only accused France of violating EU anti-discrimination law by targeting an ethnic minority for deportation, but also of violating free movement law by deporting "en masse" gypsies who are Romanian and Bulgarian nationals and therefor EU citizens. But what really seemed to make Sarkozy and his cabinet explode in anger this past week was Reding's comparison of France's recent actions to the country's history of rounding up and disposing of gypsies during World War II. One by one this week French ministers expressed their shock and fury at Reding's words, with the country's Europe minister even declaring "This is not how you treat a great nation like France!" But even after Reding apologized for making the World War II analogy, their anger didn't seem to diminish. And apparently, when Barroso told Sarkozy today that he is backing Reding's condemnation and the commission is united on challenging the legality of what France is doing, that's when Sarko lost it.

Gypsy exile in Europe mirrors wave of Islamophobia in US

It’s been an intense day of cannon fire shooting back and forth between Brussels and Paris, as the European Commission abruptly broke its silence on France’s deportation of Roma (gypsies) and came out swinging. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding held a press conference this morning calling the French deportations a “disgrace” and said the EU is now considering taking legal action against France for violating EU law. It was a shockingly strong condemnation that caught the Brussels press corps completely by surprise, considering Brussels is usually loath to criticize anything France does. Reding even thumped the podium as she spoke, comparing the expulsion campaign to the persecution of Jews during World War II.

Within minutes Paris was reeling from the shock. At a hastily organized press conference in Paris, a spokesman for the government said they were “astonished” to learn of Reding’s declarations. He then accused Reding of standing in the way of France’s efforts to "improve the situation" of Roma, which he said was “at the heart of the government’s concern and action”. Later in the day, France's Europe minister showed just how unprecedented EU criticism of France is when he warned, "This is not how you speak to a major power like France."

The issue has been on a low boil since August, when French president Nicolas Sarkozy first took the decision to deport camps of gypsies who are foreign nationals (mostly Romanian but also Bulgarian) back to where they had come from. Only problem is, Romania and Bulgaria are now part of the EU, and as such their citizens have the right to free movement within the union. But for weeks the commission was silent on the issue. That is, until today’s explosion from Reding.

France's 'gypsy deportation' is becoming the EU's problem

The controversy over France’s deportation of Roma (gypsies) who are Romanian nationals continued unabated this week, as Sarkozy prepares to host what some are calling an “anti-gypsy summit” in Paris next week between 5 of the EU’s biggest powers. France’s deportations are not only drawing fire from human rights groups – they are also coming very close to violating EU law, since Romanian nationals are now EU citizens and, in theory, have the right to live anywhere in the EU. The deportations are calling into question what the limits of “free movement” really are. And there are signs that some rightist politicians in Europe may be looking for an opening to make those EU guarantees of free movement more restrictive.

France’s Roma deportations are actually nothing new. France has been closing down illegal Roma camps and sending their inhabitants home for years - and if those inhabitants’ homes happened to be in another country, that’s where they were sent. Last year 10,000 Roma were sent back to Romania and Bulgaria. These Roma have been paid to leave, and the government has always said they were being sent home voluntarily (although they were involuntarily removed from their illegal camps).