Britain.



Safety: Louvre staff went on strike complaining they were being attacked by youngsters stealing from visitors

The number of surveillance cameras has also increased, with Mr. Barbaret saying his staff were working with the Paris prosecutors office to 'get the networks (of criminals) dismantled.'

Gangs of Roma thieves – many of them young children – can now be seen all over Paris, the most popular tourist city in the world.

'Do you speak English?' is their usual opening gambit, and then they surround victims, helping themselves to money and possessions.

Two years ago, France's then Interior Minister said that the vast majority of street robberies in Paris were being carried out by the children of Roma immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria.

Police presence: Hundreds of extras officers have been deployed at monuments includingthe Eiffel Tower

Claude Gueant said the notoriously poor and corrupt eastern European states were responsible for exporting some of the most notorious sneak thieves in the world.

Many operated in gangs around the Gare du Nord Eurostar station, preying on British travellers as they arrived by high-speed train from London.

France has shut down illegal camps full of Roma gypsies which have sprung up around the French capital, but crime remains a huge problem.



Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 but faced restrictions on immigration which are set to be lifted next year, leading to an expected influx into countries like Britain.



A Paris police spokesman said: 'There has been a huge increase in the number of criminal gangs of pickpockets and other thieves operating in the city in recent