Thursday, July 29, 2010

Nice one, Sarko

One of the main items of news here at the moment is Sarkozy's attack on travellers and gypsies in France. While lily-livered rights groups shout about racism and pandering to the far right, your average citizen is applauding Sarkozy's actions vigorously.

Me included. I was burgled twice in three months after a bunch of travellers set up camp not 100m from a flat I used to rent. It was obvious I had been watched because they came when they knew exactly I'd be out. They then came back three months later which is the exact time for insurance to have been paid and new equipment bought.

Then I lived in Perpignan for a while and watched as a travellers' residence was built and equipped just outside the town. It looked really nice and would provide stable housing for those in need. Ha ha. As soon as they moved in, the travellers stripped the place from electricity wiring, to bathroom fittings, to door knobs to anything that wasn't part of the main structure. It was a shell within 24hrs. Then they moved on with their caravans to another town.

Of course, they complain like mad that towns do not provide facilities for them to camp with free use of electricity and water paid for by your tax paying mug. Strangely though, residents - the ones paying the taxe d'habitation - don't want them anywhere near their houses. This is odd, because while house prices plummet and house break-ins and theft rocket as soon as a camp is installed, I'm sure there's no real reason for thinking they're all a bunch of uneducated parasites who just want to sponge off society, feel entitled to live the way they want not paying taxes but benefiting from all society has to offer and getting aggressive about it.

Obviously they don't produce anything except the odd basket-woven chair and I doubt they could afford those vast Mercs (paid in cash) they drive as a result of reseating three chairs, so where do they get their cash? Ill-gotten gains? Which is not taxed, either.

Of course it's not politically correct to criticise a minority bunch and there are plenty of people out there ready to express their moral outrage at such injustice. What I say is this. If you are so outraged, why don't you open up the grounds of your second homes and welcome in all these lovely 'law-abiding' alternative-living caravan dwellers? Words are cheap and easy and no one is taken in by your manufactured outrage. Put your gardens where your mouths are. Open up and let them in!


  1. I'm not confortable with all of this - I've known some nice travellors. But the bottom line is, no, I don't want them in my garden (visions of dog shit, tyres, snotty nosed children and assorted garbage dotted around whilst I and my possessions are used but treated with contempt for being part of the system).

    Do I get a NIMBY badge?

    You won't believe my WV: prepoo.

  2. PG, you win the NIMBY badge of the week. Congratulations!

    I agree though. They arrive on a clean piece of land and leave it a rubbish tip which someone else has to clean up.

    I really can't abide people who piss all over the system but also want the system to support them for free. If they need it they should pay for it. Simple.

    Love the WV!!

  3. Do you remember the Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch known as "Cut off their goolies"?


  4. Nick, sadly I think I missed that one. I can't imagine why such a sketch would spring to mind however...

  5. Couldn't agree more, Sarah. They are sponging leeches and I think Sarko is doing the right thing

  6. I just hope he makes sure that something is done and it's not all just hot air...we had a shoot out in the next village about ten years' ago involving a bunch of sedentary 'travelling people' who terrorised the area while the police looked the other way.

  7. I love the way they insist that we respect their way of life, but there's no reciprocal respect. They think we are idiots for living within the system and are therefore fair game for being robbed, burgled, intimidated.

    If they want facilities they should pay for them, just like any other tourist on holiday, including water, electricity and rubbish removal.


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