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ONE MEMBER of his own UMP party has compared President Sarkozy’s crackdown on illegal Roma camps to “rafles”, the roundups of Jews in Nazi-occupied France. Romania’s Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi has cautioned against stigmatising an entire ethnic group and fomenting xenophobia, while a spokesman for the European Commission has warned that group expulsions may well be illegal.

Following July riots sparked by the deaths of itinerant youths, Mr Sarkozy ordered the dismantling of 300 illegal Traveller and Roma camps as part of a broader campaign against crime. But the move has all the hallmarks of electoral grandstanding in the face of plummeting ratings. To date 51 camps have been dismantled, and Thursday saw the first charter flights taking 79 Roma back to Romania on a voluntary repatriation scheme. Some 700 of France’s estimated 15,000 Roma are to be expelled by the end of the month.