French riot police were seen apparently mocking a refugee woman who wanted to get her belongings from a makeshift camp in Paris before it was dismantled, according to AJ+.
In the incident captured on video by a journalist, a refugee is seen pleading and showing her identification to a French policewoman who physically blocks her from returning to a camp. Many refugees had been barred from retrieving their personal items as riot police moved to tear apart the makeshift camp in Paris. The video also showed a French policewoman who shoved the refugee before saying, “I’m the one giving orders. Leave.”
When the refugee woman gets emotional, a French policeman in the background says mockingly, “There is not a single tear on her face. Not a tear.”
FacebookEdit descriptionwww.facebook.comThis is the 26th time that officials have dismantled makeshift refugee camps across the country, The Independent reported. Often, police forces have shown little sympathy to refugees. Last year, French police deployed tear gas to clear a major refugee encampment in Calais and smashed refugee camps under a subway bridge. Citing issues with the numerous camps that have sprung up across the city hosting hundreds, if not thousands of people, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans in May to build an official refugee camp in the city that will be operational by September.
The incident comes as more refugees and migrants are making the perilous journey to cross the Mediterranean Sea from the Middle East and Africa to Europe. Many refugees and migrants land in France before they attempt to continue their trek to the United Kingdom. The death toll of people attempting to cross the sea on dinghys surpassed 3,000 over the weekend as the bodies of 39 people were recovered off the Libyan coast.
Emotional reactions against refugees have continued to be tense in France since a French-Tunisian man driving a truck plowed into a crowd of onlookers in Nice on Bastille Day. Initial reports linked the attacks to refugees before the facts came out. But even before the Nice terror attack, Europeans have not shown great kindness to refugees. For instance in May, a group of British tourists in a French city threw coins at young refugee children and watched as they ran amongst themselves.