By Pearl Rimon
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PARIS, France – The French government has made it easier for Roma immigrants to obtain work and residence rights.

This change in policy comes after police raids on makeshift Roma campsites located near Lille and Lyon. French Housing Minister, Cecile Duflot, defended the dismantling of the camps and called for: “integration through work, by widening and softening constraints that weigh heavily on Roma populations who wish to work, by eliminating the tax paid by the employers of the Roma and widening, in a very big way, the professions they can have access to.”

There are an estimated 20,000 Roma living in France.

One of the main changes in policy is waiving the tax that French employers are required to pay the immigration office when hiring a Romanian or Bulgarian worker, the tax can run as high as $2,200. The government-approved list of jobs that are open to Roma people will be expanded from the current 150 jobs.

“The Roma people are EU citizens like anyone else and would like to work like anyone else,” Malik Salemkour, a human rights activist who met with Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, told reporters.

Ayrault told reporters that the measures taken towards the Roma and the new measures were a “question of humanity and respect.”

Citizens of Romania and Bulgaria, which include the Roma, are subject to employment limitations until the end of 2013 in the European Union. This policy was supposedly imposed due to the fear of an excessive influx of immigrants looking for work. Roma are required work permits to stay legally beyond three months in a host country. This leads to many Roma living in makeshift camps near the edge of large cities illegally.

Earlier this month, police evicted around 300 people from illegal campsites. They also sent 240 Roma back to Romania and offered a stipend for those who voluntarily returned.

The Council of Europe, a governmental organization for human rights, has urged France to seek a solution for Roma immigrants. The European Commission, in charge of monitoring EU treaties, began monitoring the situation in France after the campsite raids.

For more information, please see:

BBC News — French Government Eases Job Access For Roma – 23 August 2012

Chicago Tribune — France Says to Relax Restrictions on Roma Jobseekers – 22 August 2012

Daily Reporter — After Camp Closures, France Loosening Job Restrictions on Roma From Eastern Europe – 22 August 2012