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A Roma family lives in a tent in Villeneuve-d'Ascq after police removed their caravan at an illegal camp in Lesquin, near Lille in northern France September 13 2010. Rights groups accused France on Sunday of inciting racial hatred after media published a government memorandum ordering police to prioritise the dismantling of Roma camps over other illegal settlements.PASCAL ROSSIGNOL

France hit back at the European Commission on Wednesday in a row over Paris's crackdown on Roma migrants, accusing a top official at the European Union's executive body of overstepping the mark in her criticism.

European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche accused European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding of unjustifiably suggesting expulsions of Roma from France smacked of the Nazi persecution of gypsies during World War Two.

"There's a limit to my patience," Mr. Lellouche said, echoing Ms. Reding in her criticism of France. "This kind of outburst is not appropriate."

On the eve of a European Union leaders' meeting in Brussels, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office described Ms. Reding's remarks as "simply unacceptable," according to an official at the presidential Elysee Palace.

In an unusually strong attack on an EU government, Ms. Reding told reporters at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday that Paris had broken EU law on free movement of people and that proceedings against France would probably start in a few weeks.

Referring to Nazi Germany's persecution of gypsies during World War Two, Ms. Reding said she was afraid about ethnic targeting and the darkness of Europe's past returning.

"This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War," she said.

Mr. Lellouche defended his government's strategy of dismantling illegal campsites across the country and sending Roma migrants back by plane to Romania and Bulgaria.

"A plane ticket back to the European Union country of origin is not the same thing as death trains and the gas chambers," he said. "I cannot let Mrs. Reding say that France in 2010, in its handling of the Roma issue, is the same as Vichy France."

France stepped up the expulsion of Roma migrants during the summer, rounding up families in illegal camps and offering them a financial incentive to leave the country as part of an initiative by Mr. Sarkozy to tighten security.

More than 8,000 such expulsions have taken place so far this year.

Human rights groups, the Catholic Church and some ministers in Mr. Sarkozy's own centre-right government have condemned or expressed reservations about the removals, saying they were part of efforts by Sarkozy to boost his flagging popularity at a time of unpopular budget cuts.

Tough law-and-order rhetoric played a key part in Mr. Sarkozy's election victory in 2007 and the next elections in early 2012 are already starting to loom large in French political life.

Under EU law, Roma are free to move anywhere in the union and stay for up to three months. After that, they must have found work or be paying into a social security system. Many do not and are frequently marginalized in their host EU countries.

Westward migration of Roma from eastern Europe has increased in recent years, since the EU expanded its borders in 2004 and 2007 to include states from the former Soviet bloc. Their biggest community is still in Romania.

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