
Children's toys and pushchairs are scattered across the tarpaulin-covered roofs of a Roma gypsy village built from rubbish and scrap in Paris.

Youngsters play between the shacks as their parents go about their everyday lives at the camp constructed on an disused railway line next to a ring road in one of Europe's trendiest cities.

Roma communities from EU countries such as Romania and Bulgaria have caused huge controversy in France for at least the past decade.

Playing: Children are pictured between the shacks which have been built by gypsies on a disused railway line beside a Paris ring road

Village: The Roma gypsies have built shacks at the side of a Paris ring road. The roofs are covered in pushchairs, toys and junk

Gypsies: Politicians have publicly branded them as foreigners who 'cannot integrate' in the French way of life. Roma communities from EU countries such as Romania and Bulgaria have caused huge controversy in France

A man and a woman carry bags down the disused railway line, which is littered with rubbish including shoes and children's toys

Politicians including France’s Socialist Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, have publicly branded them as foreigners who ‘cannot integrate’ in the French way of life.

Mr Valls has continued a policy started by former president Nicolas Sarkozy of razing Roma camps, and trying to deport as many of their occupants as possible.

But this has led to protests from a number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which points out that most Roma in France are Romanian or Bulgarian and as such are EU citizens with the right to live and work in the country.

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is likely to have 'far surpassed' a record 60 million this year, mainly driven by the Syrian war and other protracted conflicts, the United Nations said today.

Steam rises from the shacks' chimneys as a woman stands outside her home smoking and others get on with their everyday lives

Human rights groups have pointed out that most Roma in France are Romanian or Bulgarian and as such are EU citizens with the right to live and work in the country

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is likely to have 'far surpassed' a record 60 million this year, mainly driven by the Syrian war and other protracted conflicts

The estimated figure includes 20.2 million refugees fleeing wars and persecution, the most since 1992, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a report.

Nearly 2.5 million asylum seekers have requests pending, with Germany, Russia and the United States receiving the highest numbers of the nearly one million new claims lodged in the first half of the year, it said.