Roma and the Politics of EU Citizenship in France: Everyday Security and Resistance

Abstract:
This article reflects on the politics of European Union citizenship - and the ethical possibilities and limitations of a cosmopolitan or `normative power' EU - via an analysis of the situation of the Roma in France, which was widely mediatized in summer 2010.

It argues in a first step that during this period the French government `securitized' the Roma, `extra-ordinarily' casting them as collective threat and thereby justifying their deportation. The European Commission's outspoken response demanded that the French authorities refrain from discriminating against EU citizens on grounds of ethnicity; in so doing, the EU seemed to act as protector of minorities in accordance with its raison d'être as liberal peace project.

However, in a second step, the article draws attention to the deportations perpetrated before these high-profile events, highlighting that conditionality within the law pertaining to EU citizenship allowed for the securitization of Roma. Thus, in a third step, it is argued that the invocation of citizenship may be a useful but limited strategy of political resistance by and with excluded groups such as Europe's Roma.

Rather, it is the inherently ambiguous nature of a multi-level EU liberal or cosmopolitan government - and concomitant EU citizenship - which opens an important space for resistance.