Posted on 11/12/2004 8:00:34 AM PST by Ginifer
Some 1600 French people arrived at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with tales of fear and horror after days of anti-French attacks in the Ivory Coast.
Most of the evacuees had left behind their homes and their livelihoods, often after many years in Africa.
Helene, who lived for 32 years in Abidjan running a printing business, told French radio: "We spent five hours on the roof, listening to them taking our apartment to pieces and then breaking everything they couldn't remove. Our life is there; we have nothing in France. The radio was screaming at everyone to rid themselves of the 'imperialist pigs', the 'Satans'."
"There is so much hatred in their faces. Why? We have many, many Ivorian friends. Why so much anti-French hatred?"
At least four people were taken to hospital on arrival, and psychologists waited to offer help if needed.
Christophe Larouille, from Angers, said: "We've been through 'hunt the white man'.
"I was lucky; the helicopter landed almost on my lawn, in the middle of the night. AdvertisementAdvertisement
"There was a knock on my door, and a voice said, 'You've got three seconds to make your mind up.' I took off sitting on a pile of ammunition, like in a film. I saw someone who had lost an eye. The soldiers said there were deaths, people had been decapitated, women had been raped."
Jose, a 67-year-old administrator, emerged into the arrivals hall bringing with him just the clothes he was wearing: "A pair of espadrilles, a pair of shorts, two T-shirts and a briefcase that my neighbours managed to rescue by some miracle," he said.
He told Le Monde: "I was attacked twice over the weekend. The first time I managed to talk them out of it, helped with money and a bottle of whisky. When they came back I took refuge in the home of some African friends. My house was looted and completely sacked. They turned up with trucks. There's not a needle left."
A French official said between 4000 and 8000 of its 14,000 citizens wanted to leave, a number that would make it one of the largest evacuations of Africa's post-independence era.
The EU is not America's friend...
And after the "cleaning", the locals discover that nothing works anymore...telephones don't work, power shortages etc...Look at South Africa.....There is always a slide backward to the way it was before "the whites" came to build the society...
Just a fact
Me too, thought it referred to remarks made by French fleeing the US.
But I hope they can restore some sort of order over there, I feel bad for the families in danger.
One day the Jihadists will be running through the streets of Paris cutting off heads.
The French will be saying the same thing. "I had friends who are Muslims but they raped my wife and cut my son's head off"
Anyone who thinks it won' happen has been ignoring what is happening in Holland and the UK plus Malmo Sweden. The muslims are rampaging yet but soon.
Yes, the darkness feeds upon itself...
Well said. I have many friends of African birth that say the same things...and they aren't white Africans...
Yep
Why does this always happen in French colonies?
Do the French have any ability to reflect on themselves objectively?
I think it is a bit of Both. The French seem to leave a stain wherever they go.
We are blinded to reality by two things-one, the rhetoric of "developing" nations; and two, the fantasy that the governments of the "countries" bear any relationship to what goes on in their designated territories.
First of all, there are no "developing" nations that are actually developing-most of them are regressing into barbarism as rapidly as possible, a few are sliding nto savagery a little more slowly.
Secondly, the borders run among various tribes and larger extended-family groupings which do not recognize their citizenship in these political fantasy creatures, whose only real existence is at their UN embassies and in the minds of pathetically deluded Westerners.
A worldwide commercial empire cannot and will not coexist with a planetary ghetto whose savages are armed with modern weapons.
What's happening in Ivory Coast is the future. Not for nothing is West Africa called the white man's graveyard.
It's America's fault, naturally: All those ads for soap and toothepaste must have had an effect on the locals.
Hatred is so very easy to build, and so very difficult to put out. Whether it's anticolonialism or racism or simple economic envy - in this case I'd guess there's an element of each - it is alarming how quickly harsh words escalate to violence, robbery and rapine. It isn't just the Africans - "decent" Germans behaved this way when similar sentiments were directed at the Jews.
I take a couple of lessons from this. First, that those who foster and nurture hatred and incite violence should be held responsible for the results. In practice this is impossible, I'm sorry to say. Lovely idea, but impossible, and the fact that we've had to chase Nazis for half a century in order to obtain a small, partial justice demonstrates it. The other lesson is that individuals capable of defending themselves and of banding together for mutual defense in such times have the best chance of surviving them. Yes, this means weapons. Wield them or die on them. This is not an uncivilized approach; it is, on the contrary, the very essence of civilization. What is uncivilized is to be in a position only to be a victim.
I wonder what the Dutch would be doing if 3,000 of them had been killed, like what happened on 9/11, rather than that one man?
France, where's your coalition? You'll have to go it alone.
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
France sucks
And that's about it"
Thank you! Perhaps you could expound a bit.
Weren't the French basically siding with and protecting northern rebel Muslim factions, which had been attacking the non-muslims?
My understanding is that when the Ivory Coast govt was retaliating and driving the muslim rebels out of the country, French "peacekeepers" interceded to protect them.
Is that correct?
It has to do with the fact that the French have forced the democratically elected government of Ivory Coast to accept a so-called unity government with a Muslim rebel group that has ties to international terrorism.
But, hey, go ahead and try to paint this as some sort of racial thing.
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