Romanians "denigrated by the French bachelor’s examination"

In the letter addressed to the French minister of education, Vincent Peillon, the Romanian embassy in Paris demanded an apology and the penalization of those responsible for the enunciation of the task.

Furthermore, the embassy has declared that the Romanian minister of external affairs believes that the examination features remarks that could generate xenophobic behavior toward Romanians.

The subject that the Romanian embassy resents is formulated as follows; ”List the formalities that a Morocco leather has to comply with in order to defend for 20 years his merchandise from the Romania-based smugglers”.

The minister declared again that he firmly condemns any kind of discrimination, collective stigmatization and xenophobic view and the propagation of messages and stereotypes that are discriminatory to Romanians.

”We believe that this kind of manifestations may generate a hostile attitude toward Romanians through the popularization of several negative perceptions that affect an entire nation”, MAE said.

The French resent it too

The Education Union UNSEN-CGT Educ’action condemns the enunciation of the subject in a press release posted on its official website Friday.

The union believes that the subject needn’t have mentioned Romania”

Rather than be a clarification of the task, it is an insult to Romanians who see themselves stigmatized once again by the outrageous statements of the previous Government” the press release says.

Furthermore, the French unionists have ironically suggested that next year’s task should be” List the formalities that students have to comply with in order to protect themselves from insulting assignments”. The union said that it would continue its fight against racism.

Romanians have been constantly insulted

This isn’t the first time that the Romanian authorities have protested against discrimination and negative labeling of Romanians.

The French media in particular has ironized Romanians by associating them with thievery and beggary.

For instance, in 2010, a French comic did a word game by saying that the ancient Roman salutation had been replaced with the new Romanian one, namely ”Please, mister!”, which is what beggars say in France.

The comic suggested that all beggars were Romanians.

In response, Romanians reacted in the same mean-spirited manner and uploaded on a comedy website a montage entitled ”Please mister!” featuring several pictures of the French surrendering to the second world war German troops.

The French media continued making jokes that the Romanian authorities labeled as depreciator.

Last year, on another TV show, the producers made mean jokes about Romanians saying that it was possible that the coin flipped by the referee at the soccer match between France and Romania would not fall on the ground, implying that Romanians were thieves.

Translated by
Vlad Nichita
MTTLC, Bucharest University