Posted on 11/05/2005 4:47:47 PM PST by DogBarkTree
Paris - \'We burned 15 cars. How many do you have?\' A grim contest is under way in France as kids from disadvantaged suburbs vie with each other to see who can riot the hardest.
On Internet websites, young arsonists brag about their successes. Rioting, it seems, has become a trend sport, as youths in immigrant areas of provincial cities begin to rally to the call from Paris.
While political slogans hold no sway among these youngsters, hatred for Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is palpable. \'Now we\'re the ones chasing you with the Karcher (high-pressure hoses),\' they say, referring to Sarkozy\'s pledge to clean the suburbs of \'scum\'.
What began as pitched battles has transformed into a nightly game of cat-and-mouse with the police.
Two or three people set out armed with mobile phones, crowbars and incendiary material. A quick hit with the crowbar on the windscreen of a police van, a Molotov cocktail inside - and they\'re off back into the sprawling housing estates.
The rioters have also started using motorbikes and mobile phones to trace the movements of police riot squads, in tactics reminiscent of urban guerrilla movements.
\'Each night we turn this place into Baghdad\', says one masked youth in Sevran near Paris. As a political statement, there have been better - but these riots seem to be more aimed at the television cameras than the National Assembly.
\'It would be better to go into Paris than break up everything here,\' his friend says, appearing to consider that the victims of the rioting are predominantly their own neighbours and friends.
\'Why did they set my car on fire, why mine?\' asks one young man as he watches it go up in flames. He knows the perpetrators, he says. They\'re neighbours of his, but he refuses to name them.
\'These are our kids,\' says Mohammed Rezzoug, vice president of Blanc-Mesnil football club.
Every night, Rezzoug is out on the streets talking to local youths in a bid to prevent his own sports hall going up in smoke. \'They answer me: \'Momo, we\'ll fuck them all\',\' he says.
Lurking behind the lines of burning cars is the knowledge that these riots could soon become a matter of life and death.
On Wednesday night, a disabled woman in Sevran barely escaped death in a burning bus.
Youths barricaded the road with burning tyres and threw fuel into the bus. All the other passengers fled, but the 56-year-old, unable to move, was sprayed with petrol and then a burning rag was thrown inside.
The woman survived the attack with second and third-degree burns on one-fifth of her body, after the bus driver managed to pull her to safety.
yeah, like next week.
The French used to have some balls. However, in WWI they lost 1.4 million men...and they lost their will to fight along with them. It broke them.
It's sad. They have no national will to stand up for themselves.
No kidding.
Well, that, and maybe that part about Chirac having billions worth of oil contracts secured with Saddam could have had a teeny little part in it as well. ;>)
Yes, there is, according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo
By not supporting the US in Iraq the Arabs decided the French were weak therefore dhimini. This emboldened the Arabs in France to treat the French as such.
Disadvantaged? Only because they refuse to adapt to French language and culture. They should all be sent home where they can be surrounded by the terrific advantages of their own cuountries again.
What, are you 12 years old? The French may be political children, but their culture is our culture.Are you living on the planet Neptune?
One thing earthlings know: France is an enemy of America.
Please ... be careful what you wish for, even though I agree..
Forget LaFayette. He was barely home long enough to get his vineyards back in shape before the French navy began attacking US ships on the high seas. We had an undeclared Naval war with France under John Adams (he was our second president, right after Washington) before the 1700's were over. Franced has been problematical ever since.
Forget LaFayette. He was barely home long enough to get his vineyards back in shape before the French navy began attacking US ships on the high seas. We had an undeclared Naval war with France under John Adams (he was our second president, right after Washington) before the 1700's were over. France has been problematical ever since.
I've been to France. Their culture is NOT our culture.
All the brave French men died at the Somme.
I don't believe it . . . the Muslims attack anything and anybody.
Have you been to Washington, DC, too? Did you notice any similarities?
ML/NJ
Only in terms of architecture. We Americans are cut from a different cloth than the Europeans, just as Australians, Argentineans and Brazilians are.
I guess you weren't checking out any of the sophisticated women walking around.
ML/NJ
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.