Posted on 11/04/2005 12:32:54 AM PST by Southack
PARIS RIOTS SPREADING 4.11.2005. 18:34:50
Rioting around Paris has worsened with gangs attacking police and firefighters in defiance of a government vow to crackdown on the violence, which has plagued the capital for over a week.
Fresh rioting broke out on the outskirts of Paris — in the city's poorest and mainly immigrant suburbs — for the eighth straight night on Thursday.
Around 1,300 police officers were mobilised in the north-eastern suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, while more than 30 people were arrested in the area.
Buses, fire engines and police were stoned and five policemen were reported injured.
Police said more than 160 cars were torched overnight in the Paris region and 33 in the provinces, a day after around 315 vehicles were burnt in the city’s Ile-de-France region.
One of the worst incidents took place at Neuilly-sur-Marne where police vans came under fire from pellet pistols, but nobody was reported hurt.
A fire was started in a primary school in Stains, as police were targeted by a group of 30 to 40 people near a synagogue.
Paris firemen were called to fight a blaze at a carpet warehouse in Aulnay-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Traffic was halted on a suburban commuter line which links Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after stone-throwing rioters attacked two trains.
The clashes have gained territory every night since they began last Thursday, exposing what critics say is a failure of the government to address the problems of low-income, high-immigration suburbs where crime and gangs run rampant.
In a worrying sign similar rampages broke out elsewhere in France.
Police said several cars in the eastern city of Dijon were set alight, while similar attacks took place in the western Seine-Maritime region and the Bouches-du-Rhone in the south of the country.
Government defiant
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who cancelled a trip to Canada to tackle the crisis, said the violence was "unacceptable".
He vowed that authorities would not give in to the violence and would make restoring order their "absolute top priority".
"I will not allow organised gangs to make the law in the suburbs," he said.
President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for calm, warning that an escalation would be "dangerous".
The riots were sparked last week by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who had hidden in an electrical sub-station to escape a police identity check in Clichy-sous-Bois.
A preliminary report released by the interior ministry on Thursday appeared to exonerate police of any direct role in the teenagers' deaths.
But as the unrest continued the opposition Socialist Party and many in the suburbs themselves blamed the hardline policies of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy for fanning the violence.
Mr Sarkozy, who on Thursday said the total number of people arrested was over 140, vowed a "war without mercy" on crime and rebellious youths in the suburbs just before the rampages erupted.
The conservative minister, who has ambitions of running for president in two years, has drawn criticism for his tough rhetoric, especially for referring to delinquents as "rabble".
On Thursday, he claimed that recent rioting "was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organised — we are looking into by whom and how."
Low income suburbs
France has 751 neighbourhoods officially classed as severely disadvantaged, housing a total of five million people, around eight percent of the population.
The recent violence has exposed simmering discontent in those suburbs where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime and poor education and housing.
Unemployment is these areas is often twice the national rate of 10 percent, and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.
Thursday night was the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a night traditionally marked by feasts and family get-togethers.
These crowds aren't unarmed.
How do you not fight and tear each other to threads? You must be very TOLERANT?
"My wife, who is an ivory towered liberal, didn't even know this was happening until I mentioned it this morning. So much for having a "Pan Handling Degree". Anyway, before she even had any facts, she was already saying it is Bush's fault. I really wanted my head to explode."
You have a good case for Divorce. or maybe force your wife to watch FOX NEWS 12 hours a day.
Kristopher.
As much as I hate france, I dont want an Islamic State in Europe.
The French "STILL" must think the Maginot Line will save them. LOL
Okay... and these people (the nasty frogs) want to tell us how to run our country?
mwuhahahaha
Why bother? What is more irritating: French or protesting Muslims? Personally, I'd be just as happy if Poland took over. At least there is one pro-western government in what used to be the Warsaw Pact nations.
"Doesn't CNN have a Paris bureau? Why aren't they on the job?
I guess it doesn't fall within the parameters of their agenda."
I was thinking the same thing but figured they werent able to BLAME BUSH for the riots. Perhaps they should read this snip of crap I cut from DU.
snip from DU
It is quite clear that French riots need to be suppressed. But it is also clear that police measures are not enough.
Now we know that recent ethnic dressing code provisions in France turned out to be a whitewash, the roots of euro-Muslim crisis are much deeper. Yes, economic measures are necessary, but this is not enough as well. Political alienation of euro-Muslims needs to be addressed to find the way out of the crisis.
Brief check of National Review shows that GWOT and the Iraqi war are essentially Islamophobic.To make things worse, the conflict, like Vietnamese war in the 1970-ies, spills over to Syria and Iran. This is the true meaning of fighting "Islamofascist imperialism"! Unfortunately, France and EU support the neocons in this.
Since moderate anti-war movement is effectively stalled by neocons and their European allies, radical Islamists make their way to the surface. Export of "democratic revoultion" to the ME backfires in the most miserable way.
It's interesting that you apparently take my opinion as a personal affront. It is merely an opinion, and yet you've somehow decided that my opinion entitles you to bloviate in my direction. I'm sticking with my prediction that the French will respond with brutality, sooner rather than later. We'll see how it shapes up.
You, sir, need to back off on the caffeine.
Egad, let's hope not....
Hey now, let's not get carried away here, statements like that could cause a panic.
No, no, it's those rampaging Swedish Lutherans.
Democrap Underground is barely talking about this. Imagine if there were 8 days of riots in America! They would be blaming Bush for everything that happened and proclaiming it as proof he should be impeached. But when it happens in a leftist country, they couldn't give two craps about it. Lousy hypocrites!
It looks like it is time for the French to join the War on Terror. Those are not rioters, they are terrorists and should be treated as such.
I haven't read all the comments and maybe someone else noticed the same thing, but the above paragraph seems to be popping up in a number of media reports on the situation.
Now that's pretty danged funny!
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