French Mayor Dumps Alleged Manure on Roma Settlement

The mayor of the northern French town of Haubourdin on Thursday dumped three truckloads of what has been described as manure on the edge of an informal Roma settlement housing five families, including 11 children and a baby.

Mayor Bernard Delaby denied the dirt was manure, describing it instead as "wet agricultural soil." But local witnesses have reported the stench coming from the dirt, which they say is getting worse in the heat.

Activists gathered at the site Thursday were able to prevent a third truck from pouring out its load of foul-smelling muck.

Haubourdin: la municipalité déverse du lisier sur un campement de Roms— VDN Lambersart (@VDNLambersart)April 16, 2015

Earlier this year, a court in Lille handed the Roma at the site an eviction notice, ordering them to vacate "plots B71 and B72, which belong to the European Metropole of Lille," by April 9. With the support of local activists, the families rebuilt their settlement on a neighboring plot belonging to the general district council. The move, Roma advocate Anne Dhalluin told local daily La Voix du Nord, was intended to "buy them some time" while the children finished the school year.

But the re-settlement on neighboring land only enraged the mayor, who claimed Thursday to have "run out of methods" to dislodge the families.

"They're defying me, defying my authority as mayor," he said. "They settle on land illegally. I'm sick of it!"

According to local media reports and witness statements, Delaby's last weapon seems to have been to force the Roma out of with the so-called manure.

Speaking to VICE News Thursday, a spokesperson for the town hall argued that they had not poured out manure, or indeed mud. The spokesperson also said the "dirt" did not have a noxious smell and was nothing more than "soil, which became wet during transit."

The mayor's office did not, however, explain the difference between mud and "wet soil."

Several of Haubourdin's 15,000 residents have rallied behind the Roma and denounced the mayor's controversial methods. Teachers from local schools and volunteers from local groups were present at the camp Thursday, and a petition in favor of the Roma has already collected over 100 signatures.

But speaking in La Voix du Nord, Delaby justified his efforts to drive out the Roma, and urged activists to "give over their gardens" to the Roma instead. "Are you here at night, when they're burning cables, when they're using their chainsaws?" he added. "The children can't sleep!"

The news of the dumping caused a shit storm of reactions in the French political sphere, just one week after the county's human rights commission released a report highlighting the "institutionalization" of anti-Roma prejudice.

Anti-racism watchdog SOS Racisme called the mayor's methods "vile," and the French green party accused Delaby of "fueling a hatred for which there are no words" against the Roma community.

Meanwhile, other politicians leapt to the mayor's defense, including Sébastien Huyghe, a spokesman for former president Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, who tweeted in support of Delaby, who "stands alone in enforcing respect for the law and for property rights."

Related: Forced Evictions of Paris Slum Leave 200 Roma Residents Homeless. Read more here.

Dumping manure on or near Roma settlements has previously occurred in France, where the worrying rise of anti-Roma sentiment has been fueled by a harsh policy of forced evictions. In 2013, farmers in Maulette, a commune to the west of Paris, spent two weeks dumping fertilizer near a travelers camp, with the support of local officials and the French FESEA farmers union.

In 2014, disgruntled farmers dumped truckloads of manure outside a government building in the Alpine town of Annecy to protest the illegal occupation of farmland by a group of Roma.

This is not the first time a French mayor has circumvented the law to attempt to remove an informal Roma settlement. In the summer of 2013, the mayor of Wissous shut off the town's water hydrants — the only source of drinking water for the Roma living in makeshift camps.

In its annual report on racism in France, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) noted a rise in hostility towards the Roma, and denounced the government's preference for "a repressive approach," rather than "a robust policy of eliminating slums through integration."

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Image via Dailymotion La Voix du Nord / Pib screenshot