A mayor who supports furious residents, screaming racist remarks, an excavator reserved by the town hall to finish destroying a Roma camp… After the destruction of a camp by residents in Villeron, in Val-d’Oise, the mayor of the town, Dominique Kudla, will have to respond to justice. The association La Voix des Roms filed a complaint against him on Friday for “incitement to hatred” and “illegal expulsion”.
Sunday, more than a hundred people had met in the afternoon at the Bois de Villeron, near Roissy-en-France, to demonstrate against the installation since October of a dozen families. Roma. The inhabitants shouted “Out the Roma”, “Villeron is not a trash can” or “To arms! according to journalists present on the spot. After the departure of the sixty Roma, several vindictive inhabitants destroyed the huts, according to the departmental gendarmerie. Mayor Dominique Kudla (SE) called in an excavator to destroy the camp.
Roma branded as ‘intruders’ in city newspaper
“This perfectly illegal operation crowned a real campaign of incitement to hatred led by the mayor of Villeron”, denounces the association “La Voix des Roms” in a press release sent to AFP. The organization notes that in the last issue of the municipal magazine, dated January, the elected representative designates the Roma as “intruders”, a “people without faith or law”. “Determined in its fight against anti-Gypsyism, La Voix des Roms has lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor, who has already launched an investigation into the events of February 5”, she adds, calling for “the responsible (…) answer for their actions”.
An investigation, entrusted to the L’Isle-Adam research brigade, was opened by the Val-d’Oise gendarmerie group, under the direction of the Pontoise prosecutor’s office. It “aims to clarify the course of the facts”, determine “the role of the different people” and “whether or not there was violence against people as well as damage to property”, said the prosecution on Tuesday.
“The law is not on the side of the big guys”
For his part, the prefect of Val-d’Oise Philippe Court “disapproved” of the methods used by local residents. An eviction procedure was underway before the administrative court of Pontoise, said the urban community Roissy Pays de France, owner of the land, specifying “not to condone” the violence.
According to groups defending the rights of Roma people, the families were shocked and upset by the eviction. “The law is not on the side of the big guys” denounced ten associations on Wednesday, recalling that the Penal Code specifies that the “act of forcing a third party to leave the place where he lives without having obtained the assistance of the State […]using maneuvers, threats, assault or coercion, is punished by three years’ imprisonment and a fine of €30,000”.