Paris Riots spread throughout north-east (7th Night of Violence and Burning)

Violence broke out in impoverished Paris suburbs for the seventh straight night, with rioters clashing with police and leaving a trail of torched cars and vandalised buildings.

Observers are pointing to France's failure to address deep problems of poverty and immigration, including tensions with its Muslim minority.

In Aulnay-sous-Bois in the worst-affected area of Seine-Saint-Denis, a police station was briefly besieged by gangs of youths while a gymnasium and a garage were set ablaze and a commercial centre vandalised.

A total of 40 vehicles, including two buses, were torched before midnight in nine towns in the Seine-Saint-Denis area, a high-unemployment largely-immigrant region. Police made 15 arrests.

Two primary schools were also damaged in the area northeast of the French capital.

The riots started last Thursday following the accidental electrocution of two youths, aged 15 and 17, who had scaled an electrical relay station's walls to escape a police identity check in Clichy-sous-Bois.

The firing of a police tear gas grenade against a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois during clashes on Sunday also sparked rage in the suburb's large Muslim community.

Many of the residents of the Paris suburbs are Muslims outraged by Sunday night's tear-gas attack on a mosque at the heart of the unrest. The week-long wave of violence began after two teenage boys were electrocuted after seeking refuge in a substation at Clichy-sous-bois, believing they were being chased by police.

I've just hit on the difference between France and America. There, teenage boys are electrocuted when seeking refuge at a substation, and the community riots.

In America, the boys' families would probably sue the county, the electric company, and the police, settle a wrongful death suit out of court with enough money to get them out of the ghetto. After all, the substation should have been adequately protected to prevent accidental electrocution, signs should have been posted in every language and with pictures, etc. (/sarcasm)

Wilson (as Ambassador to Gabon) had/has connections to the Gabon Chief of State, Omar Bongo, who was the chief African ally of the French oil company TotalFinaElf, a major beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food bribes. Prior to the Iraq War, they had a contract with Saddam's regime worth an estimated 12.5 to 27.0 billion barrels of oil reserves. Also he had connections via the Middle East Institute and Rock Creek, both of which are Saudi controlled.

Wilson's wife Jacqueline was also apparently a lobbyist for Bongo and it seems Wilson was pretty chummy with Saddam's weapons buyer, having dinner with him on the eve that Kuwait was invaded in 1990. That makes it very clear that there are connections to oil-for-food. No wonder Wilson can afford his lifestyle.

Check out this.

*****

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1512059/posts

Is this the "French Connection" we were looking for?

I remember in the late 80s we had a young French woman who would babysit for us sometimes. She came from Lyon, and would speak bitterly of the "immigrants" in her town who had caused so much trouble -- her own brother had been injured by some of the rioting -- and I knew nothing about what she was saying. She was very distressed, and left France because of this.

In my ignorance, I thought she was racist at the time, because she was so opposed to these "immigrants" though I had no clue where they came from, she never mentioned the word moslem, and even if she had, it would have meant nothing to me at the time.

How times have changed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's an article from almost 2 years ago, which describes the Lyon riots of 1984, which were probably the first of the moslem riots in France:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3482641.stm

the spin continues, and so does the rioting:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17134239%255E601,00.html

The poisonous political rivalries dividing Jacques Chirac's besieged centre-right Government have been temporarily shelved as France confronts escalating violence across the troubled immigrant suburbs of Paris. After a seventh evening of rioting in the poor outer areas of the capital, populated mainly by French of North African and African origin, the political elite admitted the republican model of liberty, equality and fraternity had spectacularly failed. "The republican model of integration of ethnic minorities is in trouble," said Maurice Szafran, the publisher of Marianne magazine. "The young people of the suburbs are not in agreement with any aspect of this model." Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and President Chirac tried to reassure people the state would address the "profound frustrations" of immigrant communities, where unemployment often reaches 50per cent. "The absence of dialogue and escalation of disrespect would lead to a dangerous situation," Mr Chirac said in a none-too-subtle dig at Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's inflammatory descriptions of the young rioters as "scum".

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1277345

Youths who rampaged overnight left a trail of burned cars, buses and shops in nine suburbs north and east of Paris, home to North African and black African minorities frustrated at their failure to get jobs or recognition in French society. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin condemned the violence and said restoring order was his "absolute priority."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1855954,00.html

"there are about 8,000 cars torched every year in France, in areas such as this in Paris and Marseille and Lyon and Strasbourg. It's the standard method of self-expression. So it has to be kept in some perspective, but at the same time it has to be handled properly by the Government because there's a clear feeling that so far it's been mishandled. The villain of the piece in many eyes is Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, who is very much hard right, and opposed to him is Domininque de Villepin, the more consensual Prime Minister... The media tend to reflect the complaints of the left and of immigrant groups, but I personally suspect that the average Frenchman is with M Sarkozy on this, that the yobs have to be kept under control. His talk about cleaning out the scum from the estates is deemed to be terribly offensive, if you're among the people trying to promote integration and inter-ethnic dialogue, but it pleases people who think that France lacks law and order."

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2190432005

Rioters ignored an appeal for calm from French President Jacques Chirac, whose government worked feverishly to fend off a political crisis amid criticism that it has ignored problems in Parisian suburbs heavily populated by first and second generation North African and Muslim immigrants.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1277237

A kindergarten, a gymnasium, government offices and hundreds of cars have been torched over the past week by youths in largely immigrant areas who began rampaging after two of their peers were electrocuted at a power substation while hiding from police they feared were chasing them... France's government faced growing pressure to curb the violence, fueled by anger over poor conditions in suburban Paris housing projects.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/france-plunged-into-crisis-by-immigrant-riots/2005/11/03/1130823342502.html

The seventh night of violence, primarily the burning of cars, began as a protest over the deaths last Thursday of two north African youths who were electrocuted when they jumped over a fence surrounding a high-voltage electrical transformer. Some relatives and witnesses said the youths were running from the police, although the official account said the police were not pursuing them... Burning cars as a form of protest is not unusual in the largely immigrant, working-class neighbourhoods. Unemployment there is 30 per cent or more, compared with the national rate of 10 per cent. More than 20,000 cars have been set ablaze in France so far this year, according to a government report cited by the newspaper Le Figaro.

now *this* is interesting...

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/721c2ab4-49b3-11da-8686-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=d4f2ab60-c98e-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html

Mr Sarkozy, an advocate of positive discrimination as well as a strict quota system for immigrants, sparked controversy last week when he suggested he would be in favour of giving immigrants the right to vote in city polls. Some of his closest supporters in the UMP have criticised his proposal, arguing that any right to vote should be given only to those who choose to take full French citizenship.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=14899

Concerned that a shortage of mosques is allowing extremists to gain a foothold among Frances 5.5 million Muslims by funding places of worship, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month named a panel to look into the prickly question. Due to report to the government in June next year, the committee is being asked, among other things, to suggest ways of reviewing the 1905 secularity law that bans the state from funding places of worship.

http://www.metropoleparis.com/044bistr.html

Fourteen months before the campaign officially begins the self–proclaimed leading right–wing candidate, Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, took his quest to the platform at Agenteuil last Tuesday night and promised to 'eradicate the gangrene.'

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/tough-talk-amid-violence-backfires-on-a-wouldbe-president/2005/11/03/1130823342508.html

Just a week before the riots, he promised a "war without mercy" on violence and petty crime in the suburbs. He promised to "industrially clean" council estates of "scum". The opposition Socialist Party criticised his rhetoric. But he has also come under fire from his own camp. Azouz Begag, the Equal Opportunities Minister whose background is Algerian, asked him to stop using "warlike and imprecise language". "I talk with real words," Mr Sarkozy said. "When someone shoots at policemen, he's not just a youth, he's a lout, full stop."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4402012.stm

The meeting came amid a damaging public row in the centre-right government after Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag openly criticised the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, for calling the protesters "scum". Le Nouvel Observateur wonders whether Mr Begag, a junior minister, was sent into the political fray by his political patron, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who is expected to be Mr Sarkozy's arch-rival in the 2007 presidential elections.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/10/23/2003277041

The chief EU trade negotiator, Peter Mandelson, criticized both sides of the Atlantic on Friday, lashing out at the US for blaming stalled trade talks on Europe, while accusing France of using hyperbole to try to delay an overhaul of agricultural subsidies... The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, used that argument last Thursday, writing in Les Echos, a business newspaper, that additional subsidy cuts were "not acceptable." ...Mandelson also hit back at France, which has accused him of overstepping his mandate as trade commissioner. He said that Sarkozy's opinion piece in Les Echos amounted to "hyperbole" and that he would not go beyond the limits of the farm reforms agreed to by the EU in 2003... "We are not afraid of being isolated or standing alone," said Nicolas de la Grandville, spokesman for the French representation to the EU. He said that France was making its case now to avoid having to use a "nuclear option" later. Mandelson came under pressure from France after he offered subsidy cuts of 70 percent, up from 65 percent, in response to a US offer to cut subsidies by 60 percent and tariffs by 55 percent to 90 percent.

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