Posted on 11/06/2005 5:07:47 AM PST by Dane
Thousand cars torched in latest French riots Sun Nov 6, 2005 12:17 PM GMT
By Elisabeth Pineau
PARIS (Reuters) - Gangs of youths torched 1,300 vehicles overnight in the 10th consecutive night of violence in Paris's poor suburbs and major French towns, despite the deployment of thousands of extra police.
Cars were burnt out in the historic centre of Paris for the first time on Saturday night. In the normally quiet Normandy town of Evreux, a shopping mall, 50 vehicles, a post office and two schools went up in flames.
Authorities have so far found no way beyond appeals and more police to address a problem with complex social, economic and racial causes.
Evreux mayor Jean-Louis Debre, a confidant of President Jacques Chirac and speaker of the lower house of parliament, told France Info radio:
"To those responsible for the violence, I want to say: Be serious ... If you want to live in a fairer, more fraternal society, this is not how to go about it."
The deaths 10 days ago of two youths apparently fleeing police ignited pent up frustrations among young men, many of them Muslims of North and black African origin, at racism, unemployment, their marginal place in French society and their treatment by the police.
"Many youths have never seen their parents work and couldn't hold down a job if they got one," said Claude Chevallier, manager of a burned-out carpet depot in the rundown Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois.
But authorities now say the rolling nightly riots are being organised via the Internet and mobile phones, and have pointed the finger at drug traffickers and Islamist militants.
Overnight, 1,295 vehicles were torched across France, the highest total so far, police said. An extra 2,300 officers have been drafted in.
Seven police helicopters buzzed over the Paris region through the night, filming disturbances and directing mobile squads to incidents. Overnight, police made 349 arrests.
The number of incidents in the Paris region was similar to the night before, but in the provinces it was up sharply.
TARNISHED IMAGE
The violence has tarnished France's image abroad, forcing Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to cancel a trip to Canada, while Russia and the United States have warned their citizens to avoid Paris's troubled suburbs.
Villepin has combined a call for an end to the riots with dialogue with community leaders, youngsters and local officials, and has promised an action plan for 750 tough neighbourhoods.
"I'll make proposals as early as this week," the weekly Journal du Dimanche quoted him as saying.
But it remained unclear what could stop the violence, though some opposition parties have suggested a symbolic measure -- the resignation of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Accused of stoking passions by calling troublemakers "scum", Sarkozy has ignored calls to quit. A survey published on Sunday indicated his public image was holding up, even if many disapproved of his strong language.
Villepin also has ambitions to be the right wing's presidential candidate in 2007 and has tried to position himself as a much more consensual figure than Sarkozy; the effect on the crisis on his ratings is still unclear.
With no end in sight to the nights of wailing sirens, acrid smoke, stone-throwing and destruction, residents from all ethnic backgrounds are tiring of the unrest.
"My kids can't sleep at night," said a mother named Samia in Aulnay-sous-Bois. "They hear explosions, they see fires and they think they're in a war. When the slightest thing happens, they get anxious and say 'Mama, what's going on?'"
Introducing "drug traffickers" into the mix looks like more denial. Mischaracterizing the enemy is a sure way to fight the wrong battle.
Another round in the jihadi games begin in the land of Charels Martel and Joan of Arc.
Sheesh, even Chirac is holding his own "Security Council", what is with the French's almost pornagraphic love of the UN.
This will get very much worse before it gets better. I will guarantee that.
However, France will not "fall" because even a country so far down the wrong path will not "fall" to 10% of the population that is not very well armed.
What will happen is that the French will bend over backwards to appease. The Muslims will then correctly interpret that as French weakness and their victory. They will then ratchet up the violence to gain an even greater victory and the French will appease even more and.....the cycle will continue.
Eventually, there will come a point when it will become apparent even to the most effeminate Frenchman that maybe, just maybe, you sometimes have to act like an American "cowboy" and kick some serious ass.
By that time, the cycle of violence and appeasement will have escalated the situation to a point that the response to quell the violence will have to be quite bloody.
In the end, this is good for France. It is teaching them a valuable lesson.
It is far better that they learn their lesson now than in the future when their Muslim population is 25%.
Well, there's at least one accurate sentence in the translated report.
Precisely why I left it in! LOL
Welcome to FR. You will find a generally civil discourse here. And FR is not a blog.....
You will probably find that your other links pale in comparison to the compendium of information avaliable here.
de villepin saying to himself, "At least my hair is perfectly coiffed, as France burns".
They discovered a bomb making factory last night producing 100 molitaf cocktails. These folks are in it for a good while.
"They discovered a bomb making factory last night producing 100 molitaf cocktails. These folks are in it for a good while."
Forgot to provide a link.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051106/D8DN0R7O0.html
Two positives:
Turkey will not get into the EU.
Western nations will be very wary of Muslim immigrants. Will make it harder for them to immigrate legally and illegally. Let's face facts. Islam is in Jihadist mode and this includes demographic Jihad. European nations have social welfare systems that pay for and subsidize the Muslims to have 6-10 children per wife and this includes multiple wives. France turns a blind eye to Muhammadan polygamy.
No Western nation should admit Muslim immigrants. They are pests. Their negatives far out weigh their positives. Islam is a cancer. A spreading cancer.
France had no plan to win the peace! They should have seen the power vacuum that would develop after the unwarranted crackdown in the autonomous territories. The UN must convene an emergency session and demand that France cease this incitement!
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