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French Unrest Spreads Outside Paris
The Guardian (UK) ^ | 11-4-2005

Posted on 11/04/2005 3:54:57 PM PST by blam

French unrest spreads outside Paris

Staff and agencies
Friday November 4, 2005

A firefighter stands by at a warehouse fire in the early hours of this morning. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

A disabled person was badly burned in an attack on a city bus and more than four hundred cars were torched during an eighth night of rioting in Paris suburbs. Government officials cited a falling number of direct clashes with police to claim that the situation was becoming calmer, but the violence also spread out of the capital's immediate vicinity.

Reports of unrest surfaced in Rouen in Normandy, Dijon in Burgundy and the Mediterranean port of Marseille. A bus depot was set on fire to the west of Paris in the town of Trappes, near Versailles, destroying 27 buses.

An amateur video aired on television showed them all in a row and in flames. Gerard Gaudron, mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois, one of the worst-hit suburbs, insisted "the peak is now behind us" but in the low-income estates on the edge of Paris the mayhem continued.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, the department between central Paris and Charles de Gaulle airport, arson attacks destroyed 187 vehicles and five buildings. Two commuter trains to the airport also came under attack.

Further east, riot police were fired on in Neuilly-sur-Marne and a group of 30 to 40 were harassing police near a synagogue in Stains, where a city bus was torched and a school classroom partially burned.

"Why a school, why a car? What can you say about such blind violence," one local mayor, Michel Beaumale, said.

The unrest started on October 27 when young people of mainly north or black African origin took to the streets over the deaths of two teenagers - Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17 - who were electrocuted in a power substation where they hid thinking they were being chased by police.

Bouna's brother, Siyakah Traore, today called for the rioters to "calm down and stop ransacking everything."

"This is not how we are going to have our voices heard," he told RTL radio.

Small-scale suburban violence and car torchings are a regular though largely unreported fact of life in troubled Paris suburbs and other French cities where low-income housing estates are marked by unemployment and delinquency.

What sets the current unrest apart is its duration, and the way it rapidly ignited beyond the original flash point.

Residents in the bleak estates were fed up after eight nights of violence. "I've had enough of this," a woman of African origin in Aulnay-sous-Bois told Reuters.

Local politicians complained last night about dithering among national officials after prime minister Dominique de Villepin briefed them about an "action plan for the suburbs" which he aims to present later this month.

"Many of us told him this isn't the time for an umpteenth plan," said Jean-Christophe Lagarde, mayor of Drancy. "All we need is one death and I think it will get out of control."

The rioting has grown into a broader challenge for the French state. It has laid bare discontent simmering in suburbs that are heavily populated by poor African Muslim immigrants and their French-born children, many trapped by poverty, crime and poor education.

France's Muslim population, an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest. Disaffected members claim racism makes the second class citizens.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: dijonburgundy; france; french; frenchtoast; marseille; normandy; outside; paris; parisriots; rouen; spreads; trappesversailles; unrest
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1 posted on 11/04/2005 3:54:58 PM PST by blam
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To: blam

"French" unrest?


2 posted on 11/04/2005 3:55:30 PM PST by BenLurkin (O beautiful for patriot dream - that sees beyond the years)
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To: blam

"Why a school, why a car? What can you say about such blind violence,"

'Stupid' comes to mind.


3 posted on 11/04/2005 3:57:57 PM PST by austinaero
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To: blam

By allowing massive Muslim immigration for decades, the French imported a virus into their country. Now it's poised to kill France.


4 posted on 11/04/2005 3:58:30 PM PST by Poundstone
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To: BenLurkin
Police Station Ransacked In Latest Round Of Rioting
5 posted on 11/04/2005 3:58:44 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
France's Muslim population, an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest. Disaffected members claim racism makes them second class citizens.

Racism in France?

6 posted on 11/04/2005 3:59:45 PM PST by Brilliant
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To: BenLurkin

Bush's fault?


7 posted on 11/04/2005 4:00:31 PM PST by bridgemanusa
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To: BenLurkin

If this keeps up, the French are fried!


8 posted on 11/04/2005 4:01:18 PM PST by USFRIENDINVICTORIA (")
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To: bridgemanusa

Nope, just insurgents. Nothing to worry about.


9 posted on 11/04/2005 4:01:57 PM PST by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: blam

Sacré bleu!


10 posted on 11/04/2005 4:02:52 PM PST by NewMediaFan (Fake but accurate)
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To: blam

I fully expect the French to surrender any day now!


11 posted on 11/04/2005 4:03:29 PM PST by GOPJL (gopjl)
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To: blam

Riots in Denmark now too:

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3574


12 posted on 11/04/2005 4:04:06 PM PST by spycatcher
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To: blam

And the news blackout in the US continues.


13 posted on 11/04/2005 4:04:29 PM PST by Dane ( anyone who believes hillary would do something to stop illegal immigration is believing gibberish)
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To: blam
"A bus depot was set on fire to the west of Paris in the town of Trappes, near Versailles, destroying 27 buses. An amateur video aired on television showed them all in a row and in flames."

That's quite an escalation because that was an attack during daylight hours. It's after Midnite in Paris now, so we'll see what the night shift has in store for France soon.

14 posted on 11/04/2005 4:09:21 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: blam

O.K., call me nuts, but I hope that the rioting gets extreme. I also hope a full out Islamic war is declared. Only and I mean only after France and the rest of Europe addresses this as a war on Europe, this Islamic problem can be solved.


15 posted on 11/04/2005 4:10:21 PM PST by Andy from Beaverton (I only vote Republican to stop the Democrats)
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To: Southack
"It's after Midnite in Paris now, so we'll see what the night shift has in store for France soon."

Seems like the daily reports from there come out around 8:00 PM, our time.

16 posted on 11/04/2005 4:18:38 PM PST by blam
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To: Andy from Beaverton
" I mean only after France and the rest of Europe addresses this as a war on Europe, this Islamic problem can be solved."

Which is why the Islamofascists will never allow it to be called an open war. For the next 20+ years this struggle will continue while more Islamists invade Europe, and out populate the indigenous Europeans.

Then negotiations will result in the adoption of Shariaa law into much of the EU.

Voting blocks that riot almost always get their way in a democratic society that values peace over principles.

(That is why the socialists have been inculcating our youth with the ideas that peace at any cost is the ultimate honorable achievement, and that tolerance means accepting an enemy into your homes and allowing him to rewrite the laws.)

Our society is being taught to commit suicide by our public education system and both political parties which have wholly adopted politcal correctness.

17 posted on 11/04/2005 4:19:51 PM PST by Mark Felton ("Your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.")
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To: blam

If they cannot solve a riot on their own house, no wonder they cannot go to war. I don't remember any riot in the US that last more than 1-2 days. Even the Los Angeles riot was only for short time.


18 posted on 11/04/2005 4:20:54 PM PST by paudio (Four More Years..... Let's Use Them Wisely...)
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To: Andy from Beaverton
O.K., call me nuts, but I hope that the rioting gets extreme.

You're not nuts. It'll take a full blown slaughter by muslims to shut the goo-goo internationlist bleeding hearts up, the same folks that are preventing the west's collective survival instincts from kicking in.

Of course it would be better if we were all spared the suffering that will result, but alas the International Left has made it certain that things will get much much worse before it gets better.

19 posted on 11/04/2005 4:21:10 PM PST by skeeter
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA

What? Not toast?


20 posted on 11/04/2005 4:21:11 PM PST by BenLurkin (O beautiful for patriot dream - that sees beyond the years)
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