Thousand cars torched in latest French riots(Paris/France burns, Live Thread Night #11)

Reuters ^ | 11/06/05 | Elisabeth Pineau

[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?'"

[nutmeg]

Pinging some European FRiends... here is the latest "Paris" thread...

[CDB]

Ah, the 2,000 milestone. The LSM really know how to analyze, and speak the truth/sarc

[Polybius]

Thank you so much for your insightful response. Everything you said makes sense to me. Except, well not except exactly, but let me add a possible occurence. Suppose Al-Queda of whatever islmaofacist group, gets it into their head to aid and abet these French "insurgents", heh? Now I know there's rumors all about this is happening but no one says so for sure. So they sneak in rocket launchers and blow up some french planes. So they bomb the Eiffel tower. Whatever they do, with a little help from their friends, that 10% could, what with the french being so panty-waist, actually take over the country. I guess I sit here at times, pinching myself, and wonder if France could really be taken over by Islamofacists.

If they bomb the Eiffel Tower, Paris will lose a landmark. If they down two or three or four French airliners, hundreds of Frenchmen will die.

"C'est la guerre."

Even among the Cindy Sheehan crowd, where 2,000 war casualties brings about anguished demands for surrender, a "take over" would be quite a different matter. Even such a group would only put up with their own enslavement for a certain period of time before they would be calling out for Islamo-fascist blood.

A "take over" is only possible when a conqueror has enough firepower to be able to put down any challange to its occupation by force of arms. That takes an Ottoman Army or a German Army or a Soviet Army or a U.S. Army.

At the current time, the Muslims in Europe don't have that. All they can do is terrorise which, in the end, is the tactic of an armed force that is too weak to attack anything but "soft targets".

In the end, Europe is merely allowing itself to be terrorized and these Muslims are risking the awakening of Europe's ancient demons.

Europe and France may seem, as you say, "so panty-waist" at the present time. However, given enough provocation, the Frenchman and the other Europeans can turn into quite a viscious and bloodthirsty bunch of savages.

[Jo Nuvark]

[...Don't we all take this step on our journey to conservatism?...]

Yes, if you are an honest, humble human being.

ChIraq and his buddies are liberals who run on power fueled by greed. They panic not because of what is happening to their country..., they panic because of what is happening to them.

[grey_whiskers]

If Martel has earned the title of "The Hammer" then de Villepin and Chirac will be known by history as "The Marshmallows" ...

[grey_whiskers]

When France and other leftwads proclaim that "Bush had no plan to win the peace" they are really proclaiming that their own plans are intended to LOSE the peace. :-)

[Feiny]

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake actually, but I guess Dr. Strangelove was already taken.

[outofhere2]

Notice MSNBC and CNN aren't covering the French Riots. When they do its buried under other items, especially Anti-Bush pieces. And of course, there is no mention what kind of "youths" are rioting, only that it's France's fault for not doing enough for them. Fox had Timmerman on and what he said was chilling. He talked about the real brave Frenchmen blowing up if this thing continues and said the riots had been in the making for the last 30 years.

[Master of Orion]

Every person in the world 10 years and older knows what response would stop this nonsense immediately, namely, use of deadly force, evictions, and expulsion.

Too bad they don't still use that island they sent Papillion to.

[TracyPA]

What I notice is that CNN is trying to play down the Muslim aspect of the riots. They only mention poverty and how unfair the police are to these poor "youths". If only CNN could somehow blame this on President Bush we would see French Riots 24/7.

[Dark Skies]

A "take over" is only possible when a conqueror has enough firepower to be able to put down any challange to its occupation by force of arms.

Your argument is quite sensible except that Islam doesn't expect to take over by military means. They (muslims) are waging a war of religious and cultural attrition. They also wage war on many fronts at once.

They use the cultural sensitivity of the west as a lever to gain recognition of their culture and at the same time they seek to reduce Judeo/Christian/western cultural influence by calling the symbols of that world insults to Islam. They take territory by creating and expanding ghettoes that become "no go" areas for their host country's police. They expand their population with high birth rates and they influence politics by voting as a bloc.

Furthermore, the imams teach the young men that it is an insult to Islam to take a job with the infidel (working at a productive job strengthens the infidel economy). Young men are encouraged to be a drain on their host by going on the dole (which they see actually as the Jizya, or dhimmi tax).

Their last attempt to take Europe militarily failed because of "The Hammer" at Tours and Jan Sobieski at Vienna.

This time, using the technique of a multi-front religious war, they have surrounded Paris and their enemy's leaders are trying to figure how to appease them.

[Allen H]

Well they may not be talking about it, but they know it's going on. And you know it. So everyone knows it. Not talking about the big elephant in the room doesn't mean it's not there. And this really proves that the liberal media is liberal. If this was England or Australia or Poland, a very close conservative Bush supporting ally of America, it would be all over. But this is france, the liberal media and liberal democrats bestest buddy buddy pinko socialist leaning friend.

And it proves once more that Bush and people like him are right, and kerry and people like him and the libs and french, are wrong. You don't placate radicals, you deal with them with a strong hand, and when they do things like this, you shoot to kill. THAT is how you stop it. This whole france thing is a MAJOR indictment of the liberal mind set and how they would handle the war on terror. Because it is happening to the very people who are the biggest opponants to our handling of the war on terror.

I mean, this will end any argument with a liberal and leave them with only insults and vulgarity to throw back. All you have to do when they complain about the war is "Really? So we should have done things like france said? They can't even control their own country and a 10% muslim population has thrown them into national chaos! But you think they could fight an international global war on terrroism effectively, when they can't even get their own muslims to behave in a civilized manor, after two kids run and electricute themselves when the police weren't even chasing them." WHAMO!!! Argument over. This is great for the Bush agenda and the conservative agenda and the war. The chief opponants to war in Iraq have just shownt he world they don't know JACK about what they say.

[cgbg]

Do the Socialist Gay Elites of Europe know, for example, that homosexuality is a hanging offence in Iran? Do they think that it wouldn't be a hanging offence in a fully Islamic France? Do they really believe that? And what about feminists? Aren't there any French feminists? And if there are French Feminists, what are they telling themselves about the abject slavery of Muslim babes over in the projects? Do they know about the gang rapes and face slittings (called a "smile") of the girls who dare to think a non-Islamic-slavish-bootlicking thought? "Oh, it doesn't matter that those ghetto women live in abject slavery, after all, they are Africans. Nothing like that could ever happen to a real French Girl. Nothing like that could ever happen to me."

Only the senior citizens remember the Nazi occupation. They must be freaking big time right now.

[IndyInVa]

Best comment (among many excellent ones) on this thread!

[ohioWfan]

Your entire post is on the money. Thank you!

[AmishDude]

You'd think France had won a sporting championship.

[olde north church]

Actually, it was King Ferdinand #? was the one who kick muslim ass and took names. That's why Ysabel married him.

[FreeReign]

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.

Islamist militants are organizing the riots.

[Pyncho]

Brilliant post #94. In TX we would talk to rioters, too.
That is, once a Ranger's boot is on their face and a shotgun aimed midsection. Converse all you want then!

[outofhere2]

I didn't know that about Ferdinand. MANHOOD, you don't see it in France now.