Yesterday evening the Maison des Roms in the 20th arrondissement of Paris – a warehouse owned by the Mairie de Paris which has been squatted for almost a year by around 100 Roma including children and elderly people – was burned down after a firebomb attack. Fortunately there were no fatalities; one passer-by was taken to hospital.

The attack came two days after a demonstration in the neighbourhood where some demonstrators proclaimed “we are going to burn everything!”. Le Collectif contre la xénophobie has denounced the attack and demanded that the authorities make every effort to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

On Monday 5th October around 30 people demonstrated outside the office of the Paf (border police) in Cherbourg to protest against the deportation of an Afghan man to Slovenia. The following day there were a demo outside the préfecture de Caen aganst the deportation of another Afghan male to Hungary. Sadly both deportations went ahead.

La Cimade report that yesterday a detainee attempted to hang himself at the CRA (detention centre) of Nimes. The charity says that they have witnessed an increase in acts of desperation and despair by the detainees, following the introduction of the new Besson law which has increased the maximum permitted stay in detention to 45 days.

A month after the decision of the conseil general of Seine-Saint-Denis (north-east of Paris) to stop housing unaccompanied minors, citing lack of funds, dozens of teenagers are sleeping rough, reports 20minutes.fr. The president of the tribunal pour enfants de Bobigny has made an appeal to the department’s residents to house the youngsters; meanwhile employers of the tribunal have been collecting funds to pay for breakfast for them.