Paris slum residents fume as riots ruin their town

Reuters ^ | 11/06/05 | Tom Heneghan

[Pikamax]

Paris slum residents fume as riots ruin their town

By Tom Heneghan Reuters

Sunday, November 06, 2005

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France (Reuters) - Down past the burned-out delivery vans, between scruffy trees and high-rises with rusting balconies, stands a firebombed municipal social club. They used to teach tango and jazz dance here.

Further along, charred patches on the street mark the places where other cars were torched and then towed away. Shoppers hesitate before a supermarket with shattered glass doors. On the edge of town, acrid smoke rises from a smoldering carpet depot.

After more than a week of nightly violence, the rundown northeastern Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois is a jumble of frayed nerves and flaring tempers. Residents are fed up with rioters upsetting their homes, their lives and their dreams.

"My kids can't sleep at night," says a mother who only gives her name as Samia. "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?"'

But if the politicians are at a loss for a coherent response to the unrest -- now spreading from Paris's suburbs to other cities -- many of the inhabitants and even the rioters themselves seem similarly trapped between anger and despair.

Henri Huynh, who came here from Vietnam in 1969, sighs in resignation at the sight of the firebombed social club. "That's where we used to have our dancing lessons," he mutters.

Only minutes later, he's screaming as young men turn up a boom box to blast rap music at the town's "silent march against violence" as it passes. "Stop that now! Stop that provocation!" he yells. The grinning youngsters ignore him.

WRONG NAME, WRONG ADDRESS

Just off the highway linking Paris and its Charles de Gaulle airport, Aulnay-sous-Bois is one of many dreary suburbs around the capital where young French of Arab and African origin grow up feeling they have "No Future" tattooed on their foreheads.

As in many suburbs, unemployment is significantly higher than the national average of about 10 percent. In the rougher estates, it probably reaches 30-40 percent or more, feeding a widespread sense there's not much residents can do to get ahead.

"Even if you have a university degree, in the end all they give you is a broom," hisses an Algerian cafe owner.

Fouzi Guendouz worries he won't get a summer job next year because he comes from this riot-hit suburb of 80,000 residents.

"It's already hard enough to get a job when you have an Arab name like mine," says the 20-year-old business student of Algerian origin. "Now my address is against me too."

Guendouz has no time for politicians who urge residents of foreign origin to make more efforts to integrate: "I was born here, I went to school here, I'm a French citizen -- how much more integrated can I get? That's an insult, it's stupid."

Claude Chevallier, manager of the smoldering carpet depot, sees breakdown all around -- "on the family level, in schools and in civic life. Many youths have never seen their parents work and couldn't hold down a job if they got one."

...Continued

Holding her little daughter, a young mother named Ghislaine says the protesting youths have no right to trash things, but sympathizes with their frustration.

"The police are really rough with them," she says. "If they're Arab or black, they constantly get stopped to have their ID card checked. It's no wonder they're fed up with it."

TEMPTED BY TELEVISION

Although nobody uses the word, many residents marching among the housing blocks seem to agree with embattled Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that the rioters are "scum."

"You should see these hooligans in the morning," says Genevieve Bourgognat, a middle-aged woman who watched from her eighth-floor flat as the local social club burned down below.

"They come back to survey what they did and they're proud of it. They show their friends. They boast they got on television!"

Huynh, a mild-mannered small business consultant, searches for the best way to describe them. "They're like dogs -- they bite anything in their way," he finally says.

Sarkozy and other officials accuse drug traffickers and Islamist militants of stoking the flames, an argument that elicits a shrug and a dubious shake of the head here.

"Drug traffickers working behind the scenes? You can go down to the train station and see them peddling drugs in broad daylight," said Ali Sabri, 39. "The police know who they are but they don't do anything about it."

After the "silent march" is over, a few adolescent boys ham it up for a television crew earnestly trying to ask them serious questions about discontent in the suburbs.

"It's like Baghdad here! It's the Apocalypse!" they hoot into the camera before a social worker breaks in and chides the television crew for giving excited kids a platform to perform.

"I know why they called a silent march," a young black woman mutters as she turns away shaking her head at the mutual misunderstanding. "Maybe we don't really have anything to say."

[libstripper]

If I started burning my neighbors' houses and cars, I'd be lucky to live long enough for the cops to arrive and I'd be glad to see them. Riots like this only happen in neighborhoods where the people acquiesce in what the rioters are doing.

[definitelynotaliberal]

Great analysis, Jenny! You are, indeed, cool!

[ketelone]

Or of course, the victims are too afriad to do anthing about it.

Or even cant do anything about it, being outnumbered or outgunned.

[dsc]

"Riots like this only happen in neighborhoods where the people acquiesce in what the rioters are doing."

I was assuming that France is a "gun control" country. Am I mistaken?

[Lancey Howard]

The main reason that the dying, Democrat "mainstream" newsrooms in this country try to spike any stories about Old Europe's multitude of miserable failures - - stagnant economies, rampant unemployment, decaying infrastructures, bankrupt governments, failed welfare states, failed appeasement policies, etc. - - is because it reflects so badly on their own party's agenda to import Euro-style secular socialism to America.

These newsrooms' conscious decision to avoid reporting on the current intifadas in France and Denmark are just the tip of the iceberg. Expect the dying, liberal "mainstream" newsrooms here to spend considerably more time "reporting" about the anti-Bush protests in South America and Panama over the next week or so. That's the kind of stuff that's right down their alley.

Meanwhile, citizens who care to keep themselves informed will stay tuned right here at Free Republic and other internet sources, as well as talk radio and cable news. Nobody who truly takes their news seriously watches the networks or reads the New York Times, lol. Nobody.

[dsc]

"The other half of this equation is that the French don't want them to integrate, no matter how much they claim to."

Some of my ancestors ran into "No Irish need apply" policies.

"The Muslims don't want to integrate"

Then get rid of them, or just give them the keys to the country.

[MinuteGal]

Someone posted a list this morning of the jihads started by the Muslims in the past couple of centuries. I can't find it now that I need it. Just got an email from a lib stating that jihads have just started in recent memory.

Anyone remember seeing this post? A link would be appreciated.

Leni

[dsc]

"Nobody who truly takes their news seriously watches the networks or reads the New York Times, lol. Nobody."

Would that were true. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people who think themselves well informed members of the elite because they read the Slimes and listen to NPR.

[LongElegantLegs]

Any and all steps by French authorities to stem the violence will, of course, have to pass the "global test."

Worth repeating!

[Hodar]

I'm amazed France hasn't surrendered yet. It's been 10 days!!

[ketelone]

You said it, buddy. If the hippy-liberal-flowerpower left had its way, we'd all be driving these: When I first saw one of these while in the UK, I definitely did a double take.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

"Even if you have a university degree, in the end all they give you is a broom," hisses an Algerian cafe owner.

At one time, European entrepreneurs saw an opportunity in Africa. Many set up farms and industries there. Marxism is driving them out. It appears the universities have taught everyone how not to be an entrepreneur. The Algerian Cafe Owner, has a business and is complaining?

[Mulch]

Another reason the MSM wont report this story truthfully is because the perpetrators are black.

[sageb1]

How soon can we expect the UN report on poverty in France? As soon as they issue the one on poverty in New Orleans?

[Dane]

Any and all steps by French authorities to stem the violence will, of course, have to pass the "global test."

LOL, jean french kerrie's words come back to bite him.

[ex-Texan]

France will soon discover this massive program terrorism by arson was instigated by hate speech in Mosques. The Frogs may soon discover caches of arms and munitions stored in 'places of religious worship.' Poor little Froggies. They simply stand aside and watch marauding gangs of Muslim youths burn Paris. They ought issue shoot to kill orders and send in their troops to stomps these buggers. But they will delay, ponder variables and let Paris burn.

[sageb1]

""it isn't fair that the Americans get all the jobs. we get nothing,""

The difference between capitalism and socialism.

[republicangel]

I will admit that I've never been to France. However, I've always heard how quickly the French will tell a person that they aren't French and therefore don't understand the French way. Has anyone wondered how these second and third generation immigrants must react to being told that they aren't French? In the United States by second or third generation everyone is pretty much an American. It doesn't matter where you came from.

[dsc]

"I'm amazed France hasn't surrendered yet. It's been 10 days!!"

The poor dears probably can't find anybody to surrender to.

[dajeeps]

The other half of this equation is that the French don't want them to integrate, no matter how much they claim to. The Muslims don't want to integrate and the French wouldn't let them if they did want to.

The politicians want them there on election day, and that's it. It's the same with the Mexico problem here, truck em in, let em vote and who cares what happens to them afterward.