Charlie Gard Will Be Moved to Hospice

Paris council has been carrying out an extensive programme of rodent control in the area, meaning the bodies of rats who have swallowed pesticide are easily found in bushes and by dustbins.

Police will seldom bother arresting Roma youngsters because they have no papers, and claim they are below the age of criminal responsibility.

When shown the dramatic video, a local officer said: ‘We are doing our best to arrest these criminals. They are very active at the moment.’

Charity and human rights groups were furious in 2014 when a leaked police memo called for the ‘systematic eviction’ of Roma from the centre of the city.

A spokesman for Charity group Catholic Help described the note as a ‘scandal’, saying that it ‘stigmatised a poor community’ and amounted to ‘racial profiling’ - something which is illegal in secular France.

But other Paris officials argued that Roma are behind most of the street crime in the city, involving themselves in everything from aggressive begging to muggings and burglaries.

Most of the Roma live in shantytowns on the outskirts of Paris, which the last Socialist government regularly tried to destroy.

President Emmanuel Macron’s new government has not yet made any effort to deal with lawlessness within the Roma community.

Most of the estimated 20,000 Roma in France are EU citizens with the right to live and work in the country.