Good Old Europe Needs Help to Tackle Anti-Gypsyism

A Decade ago, in 2015, the highest court in the French judicial system, the Court of Cassation, decided that there is nothing wrong in the statement of a French mayor that maybe Hitler did not kill enough Gypsies.

Interestingly, 10 years later, in 2025, Gilles Bourdouleix is again mayor of Cholet and have even been elected in the past as a member of the French parliament.

This shows very clearly that his words have been met with approval and his political career is not over. And we are not talking here about some former Soviet republic in Europe’s backyard, but about a progressive and enlightened France, one of the pillars of the European Union.

Obviously, the problem of Anti-Gypsyism is Europe-wide, like an epidemic. And the role of the judiciary in the avalanche of this problem over the last 10 years is enormous. Hundreds of examples from across Europe can be given of politicians being acquitted of their anti-Roma hate speech by national courts. One of the most scandalous is the 2019 decision of the Bulgarian Supreme Administrative Court in the case against Valery Simeonov who compared Roma women to “street bitches” in a speech from the rostrum of the Bulgarian Parliament. The fact that there were women among the judges did not change their belief that this was not discrimination, when it comes to Gypsies, even women solidarity disappears as hardness of heart is required. After so many centuries it is not a matter of law but a matter of culture.

This is something scholars can hardly explain since it doesn’t fit into classical narratives. A systemic problem that cannot be resolved through individual complaints to the courts. There is already a huge body of case law on the issue, but strangely no one wants to draw any conclusions from it, and Roma continue to spin in a vicious circle of unworkable solutions.

80 years after the end of the World War II, we have to realise that during this entire period there was no international tribunal that unequivocally condemned Hitler’s genocide of the Roma.

The Nuremberg trials (1945-1946) failed to achieve this, and the Eichmann trial (1961) in Jerusalem had another purpose, although crimes against Roma were vaguely mentioned, Roma people were not allowed to testify as their fate was not a priority.

The conclusion is that the last World War ended in a way that has largely determined the situation of the Roma today. The political decisions taken by the victorious countries in the war were not in favour of the Roma. The matter is not closed and has yet to reignite, like an unhealed wound. It is a complex political, legal, social and cultural issue, not only of European, but of global nature, as millions of Roma, Gypsy people live today on all continents. It is obvious that Europe cannot tackle this issue alone, Good Old Europe needs help.