Europe-Horizon

France has come under fire recently for dismantling Roma camps around the country and deporting hundreds to Romania and Bulgaria.

Over the weekend thousands of people took to the streets in French cities to protest the government's action.

But away from the controversies, a pioneering scheme to help integrate Roma continues its work just outside Paris, the French capital.

Laurence Lee reports.

The decision to extend German nuclear reactors' lifespans has been criticised by environmental groups [AFP]

The German government has decided to extend the lifespans of the country's nuclear reactors.

The decision, taken on Monday after 12 hours of talks between senior politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition, means that some of the 17 plants will now be operational until the 2030s.

Norbert Roettgen, the environment minister, said after the meeting in Berlin that the lifespans of Germany's nuclear power stations would be extended by 12 years on average.

"We've agreed that older nuclear plants will receive an extension of eight years, and newer ones operating with different technical standards will get a 14-year extension," he said.

He said nuclear utilities would have to pay part of their extra profits boosted from the extension to develop renewable energy.

The debate has also pitted nuclear power-plant operators against environmentalists, about 1,000 of whom staged a protest outside the chancellery where the meeting was held.

Energy strategy

The agreement is set to be the cornerstone of Merkel's broader energy strategy which will be decided later this month.

Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, had decided to mothball the reactors by around 2020.

Merkel wanted to postpone the shutdown as part of a new "energy concept" for the country due to go before her cabinet on September 28.

The decision was criticised by Greenpeace and other environmental groups as well as Germany's Green Party.

Merkel calls the extension a "bridge" until renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar power can produce more of Germany's power as it seeks to reduce dependence on coal.

The meeting also set down some of the specifics of a separate nuclear fuel element tax intended to raise $3.1 bn a year.

They discussed how to make energy companies such as RWE, Vattenfall and E.ON pay for the extension of their plants and ensure a greater contribution to Germany's energy output from renewable sources.

Quid pro quo

As part of an 80bn-euro austerity programme for the period 2011 to 2014, Germany wanted to tap energy firms, a quid pro quo for keeping their plants open for longer.

The nuclear extension deal faced immediate criticism from the opposition Social Democrats (SPD), who said they planned a legal challenge if Merkel's cabinet attempted to pass it into law without approval of the upper house of parliament.

The SPD said  it would reverse any extension of the nuclear plants' lifespans if the party returned to power.

Support for Merkel's coalition has fallen in recent opinion polls and surveys suggested a majority of Germans opposed the idea of postponing the date that the country goes nuclear-free.

More than 800 people have been killed in Eta's four-decades-long campaign for independence [GALLO/GETTY]

Eta, the Basque separatist group, has declared a ceasefire, the BBC reports citing a video statement which it has obtained.

The group says it has taken a decision "not to carry out armed actions" in its campaign for independence in a decision taken several months ago "to put in motion a democratic process", the BBC reported on Sunday.

"Eta confirms its commitment to finding a democratic solution to the conflict," the statement said, according to extracts released by the BBC.

"In its commitment to a democratic process to decide freely and democratically our future, through dialogue and negotiations, Eta is prepared today as yesterday to agree to the minimum democratic conditions necessary to put in motion a democratic process, if the Spanish government is willing."

The news came after Eta was urged on Friday to declare a truce by its political wing Batasuna and its ally, the Eusko Alkartasuna party.

Spanish media reported that Batasuna and Eusko Alkartasuna had called on Eta to agree to a "permanent ceasefire under international verification" in a document outlining a "road map" for a peace process.

Eta, regarded as a terrorist group by both the European Union and the US, has been blamed for over 800 deaths in more than four-decades-long campaign for independence for the Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France.

It resumed its attacks in mid-2007 after a 15-month truce and abortive negotiations with the government.

Since the end of the ceasefire, police have arrested more than 450 suspected members of Eta or supporters of the group.

Police said about 12,000 people had demonstrated in Paris but organisers put the total nearer to 50,000 [AFP]

Thousands of people have attended demonstrations in Paris and other French cities to protest against tough new security measures introduced by the government which they say are being used to target the country's Roma community.

France began clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps in July, after Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, announced a series of measures to fight crime.

Police said about 12,000 people had demonstrated in the French capital but organisers put the total nearer to 50,000.

Human rights, labour unions and leftist political parties accuse Sarkozy of stigmatising minorities and seeking political gain with the security crackdown.

They also say he is violating French traditions of welcoming the oppressed, in a country that is one of the world's leading providers of political asylum.

'Deepening row'

Organisers said demonstrations were taking place in 135 cities and towns across France, and others were planned outside French embassies in capitals such as London, Brussels and Bucharest.

About 1,000 Roma returned to Romania and Bulgaria from France last month.

Officials said they were leaving "on a voluntary basis," after each adult was paid $390 and an additional $130 for each child to leave. 

Sarkozy has spoken of camps being "systematically evacuated" and also said that naturalised citizens who threaten the lives of police officers should lose their citizenship.

Laurence Lee, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Paris, said people were "extremely angry" at the measures.

"A lot of them are saying the immigration policies being pursued by the Sarkozy government, particularly against the Roma people, are basically an echo of the Second World War when France expelled Jews and Gypsies," he said.

"It's that serious an allegation, a sort of ethnic cleansing is the way they are seeing it. 

"There has been all sort of criticism of this block expulsion policy of the Roma people from members of his own government, from the United Nations, the European Commission and elsewhere.

"One of the key allegations being that people aren't being deported based on their individual cases, they are simply being put on planes en masse, and shipped back to Romania.

"Some people say that it's unconstitutional, some say it's illegal, [but] the French government say they [are] quite within their rights to do it, but the row about the treatment of the Roma in France is deepening at the moment."

Opinion split

Sarkozy began the crackdown after violence in July between police and youth in a suburban Grenoble housing project, and other clashes in a travelling community in the Loire Valley.

For years, the French president has used his image as a tough, law-and-order politician to win political support.

He has linked Roma to crime, calling their camps sources of prostitution and child exploitation.

Polls have shown the French are split about the policy, though slightly more favour it than oppose it.

"If you go two streets up the road, Paris is carrying on as normal, and I think, in the end, what we are seeing here, is the biggest example of the general feeling against Sarkozy and other policies as well," said Lee.

"By and large, more French people are much more concerned about domestic issues like pensions and the economy, but certainly in the end, there are very serious allegations against the French policy on the Roma at the moment."

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said he briefly considered resigning amid the uproar over Sarkozy's latest measures.

Anti-war protesters in Dublin have thrown shoes, eggs and plastic bottles at Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, as he arrived at the first public signing of his memoirs.

About 200 people in the Irish capital shouted that Blair had "blood on his hands" over the 2003 Iraq war when he arrived at the bookshop on Saturday amid tight security. The projectiles did not strike Blair.

His book, entitled A Journey, contains his defence of Britiain's decision to go to invade Iraq under his leadership. It was launched earlier this week and has been an immediate top seller.

Some of the protesters scuffled with police and at least two people were arrested.

Blair spent about two hours in the store before emerging to more shouts and hurled eggs. He was quickly driven away.

Proceeds donated

He was paid a $7m advance for the memoirs, which outline the reasons for his policies during his decade as prime minister, including the invasion of Iraq, which he writes that he does not regret.

Blair has said that he will donate the advance and all of the proceeds from the book to a UK charity for wounded troops.

Several hundred people who were not involved in the demonstrations also queued at the bookshop to receive a signed copy of the book.

Killian Kiely, 21, was among those who met Blair.

"I wanted to see him, he is one of the most important leaders of his generation, though there is a lot I would disagree with about his policies," he said.

"I just wanted to see him in the flesh."

Blair is planning to hold another book signing in London on Wednesday, which anti-war activists have said that they will target.

With Bertie Ahern, his Irish counterpart at the time, Blair negotiated the 1998 Good Friday Peace agreement which ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.