Diversity is our greatest strength!
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
it was probably sarcasm)
Posted on 11/03/2005 5:59:42 AM PST by Pikamax
Shots fired at police, fire crews shot at rioting in Paris suburbs spreads.
Jamey Keaten Canadian Press
Thursday, November 03, 2005
AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France (AP) - France's government faced mounting pressure Thursday as suburban unrest took on dangerous new momentum, with shots fired at police and fire crews as they battled youths who torched car dealerships, public buses and a school.
Four shots were fired at police and firemen in four different towns, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official for the troubled Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris where the week of violence has been concentrated.
No one was injured in the shooting, officials said.
Rioters set fire to 315 cars in the Paris area overnight, half of them in Seine-Saint-Denis, where nine people were injured, officials said.
The heavy presence of armed riot police did little to deter violence as youths rampaged for a seventh consecutive night. Acts ranging from clashes with police to torching of vehicles were reported in at least 10 Paris-region towns.
The riots have highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor suburbs. Frustration has been simmering in housing projects to the north and northeast of Paris, heavily populated by North African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children who struggle with high unemployment, crime, poverty and a lack of opportunity.
In the tough northeastern suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, gangs of youths torched a Renault car dealership and incinerated at least a dozen cars, a supermarket and a local gymnasium.
In nearby La Courneuve, two shots were fired at riot police, said Cordet. A third shot targeted firefighters in Noisy-le-Sec, and a forth was aimed at a fire crew in Saint-Denis, home to the Stade de France stadium that hosted the final of the 1998 soccer World Cup.
Bands of youths forced a team of France-2 television reporters out of their car in the suburb of Le Blanc Mesnil, then flipped the vehicle and set it on fire.
Unrest spilled over to public housing projects in the area, where police engaged in a cat-mouse game with youths, who would break car windows and toss petrol-bombs inside before running away.
Police in the Seine-Saint-Denis region detained 23 rioters Wednesday night and have taken a total of 98 people into custody since the rioting started, Cordet said.
France's government was in crisis mode, with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who postponed a visit to Canada this week in order to deal with the crisis, calling a string of emergency meetings with government officials throughout the day Thursday.
One was a working lunch with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of inflaming the crisis with his tough talk and police tactics. Sarkozy has called the rioters "scum" and vowed to "clean out" troubled suburbs, language that some say further alienated their residents.
Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to react "firmly" but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to have dealt with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.
"We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough," he told France-2 television.
The unrest has laid bare France's failure to fully integrate its millions of immigrants, many of whom are trapped in the poverty and grinding unemployment of low-cost, sometimes decrepit, suburban housing projects sometimes controlled by gangs dealing drugs and stolen goods and where police seldom venture.
The rioting began last Thursday in the northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after the accidental deaths of the two teenagers who electrocuted when they hid in a power substation because they thought police were chasing them. A third was injured.
Officials have said police were not pursuing the boys, aged 15 and 17.
I would destroy Notre Dame myself rather than see it become a mosque.
It's all about "poverty." /sarcasm
Let them eat cake....
And France is worried about the US destroying their culture?
/sarcasm
Does France still have an army? Or, is that to politically incorrect?
Diversity is our greatest strength!
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Wonderful, simply wonderful. The cops are useless, the French are going to have to call out their Army.
Wait... on 2nd thought
Is this a news report or an editorial? Someone, hand me a violin.
What?!
That shows that this was a faux riot.
All show.
I bet the French spoken was parfait. Harhar....er, I mean, ar, ar.
Now if there were "shots fired" in Russia, Germany, the Baltics or Balkans....people would be severely injured or dead. THOSE folks know how to riot.
French riots...pah!
Interesting that Iran's ratcheting up the rhetoric and these riots coincide.
Or is that just too obvious and I'm a little slow.
"A WIFF OF GRAPESHOT!"
The fact that France even has a government position titled "Minister of Social Cohesion" tells me that their problems began long before the first rioter set fire to a car last week.
They would have surrendered already, but they don't know who to hand their surrender to.
I'd feel alienated too if I were a rioting scumbag, and someone threatened to use police tactis to 'clean out' my neighborhood. I'd probably assume they were talking about me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.