Until recently, euworkers.fr from Romania and Bulgaria, who became full EU members in 2007, could only work in France in a limited number of jobs, including as models or welders. But a new list of allowed professions has lifted those restrictions, allowing Romanians to do a wide range of jobs in France.

The French government has pushed back against the highly mediatized ‘Roma migration problem’ by forming a police alliance with Romanian officers whose primary role is to cooperate with local police forces in stopping migrants and arresting them on suspicion of petty criminality. These officers are able to carry out deportation orders without delay, often from police jails (Locaux de Retention Administrative).

Legal Framework: Understanding the Rights of Romanian Workers in France

In Paris, D.D. is waiting for the national police to evict him and 200 other Roma migrants from the vacant lot they had occupied in Sucy-en-Brie for six months. He had arranged his campers and shacks in neat rows. Generations of women and girls kept the interiors impeccably clean. The men and boys left early each day to make money at the Gare du Nord and other train stations.

Like other Roma, D.D. tries to earn enough to keep his family together. He hopes that newly elected French President Francois Hollande “won’t be a second Sarkozy” and his promises to relax the French laws limiting Roma access to employment will bear fruit. But he is not overwhelmingly optimistic. He says that easing border controls in Romania would also help him and other truck drivers, who are stuck in traffic jams on the highway between France and Hungary because trucks have to wait while their passports are checked at the land border.