Posted on 11/06/2005 1:21:11 PM PST by JustaCowgirl
By Elizabeth Pineau and Sophie Louet
PARIS (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac on Sunday vowed to restore order in France after riots in Paris spread across the country and began to unnerve his European neighbours.
"The Republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear," Chirac said after a special domestic security council met to respond to the latest violence in which 1,300 vehicles went up in flames.
"The law must have the last word," Chirac said in his first public comments since the riots started in the poor suburbs, noting the importance of the respect of all, the law and the equality of chances.
Signs of a fresh wave of violence emerged on Sunday evening when youths seized a bus in Saint-Etienne, in southern France, ordering passengers to get off and then torching the vehicle.
The driver and one passenger were hurt, officials said.
In Rouen, in the north, rioters pushed a burning car against a police building. No-one was hurt, police said. Cars were also burnt in the cities of Nantes, Rennes and Orleans, media said.
Chirac's government is struggling to cope with an explosion of unrest with complex social, economic and racial causes.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the government would step up security wherever necessary. Some 2,300 extra officers have already been drafted in.
"We cannot accept any 'no-go' areas," Villepin said after meeting Chirac, adding he would announce his plans for the country's underprivileged suburbs on national television on Monday.
Rioting began 10 days ago with the accidental electrocution of two youths apparently fleeing police. Their deaths ignited frustration among ethnic minorities over racism, unemployment, police treatment and their marginal place in French society.
"This is too much, stop!" sobbed a woman in Evreux, a normally quiet town in rural Normandy where a shopping mall, 50 vehicles, a post office and two schools were destroyed.
"FRANCE IS NOT BURNING"
Across France, 1,300 vehicles went up in flames overnight. For the first time, more than 30 were destroyed inside the city walls of Paris. Previously quiet towns such as Dreux, to the west, and the city of Nantes were also affected.
Police said 349 people had been arrested, including six youths caught stockpiling 90 Molotov cocktails in a disused police building south of Paris.
Despite the worst destruction since the riots started, a police spokesman called for a sense of proportion: "It's 211 districts out of 36,000, so France is not burning."
Authorities say drug traffickers and Islamist militants are helping to organise the unrest, via the Internet and mobile phones, among the North and sub-Saharan African immigrant communities who make up a significant part of many suburban housing estates.
The violence has tarnished France's image abroad, forcing Villepin to cancel a trip to Canada, while Russia and the United States have warned their citizens to avoid troubled suburbs.
Neighbouring Germany, too, has a large immigrant population, including over 3 million Muslims -- most of Turkish origin.
Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of the conservative Christian Democrats in parliament, said Germany should be under no illusion that similar events could happen there too.
In Italy, opposition leader Romano Prodi called on the government to take urgent action, telling reporters:
"We have the worst suburbs in Europe. I don't think things are so different from Paris. It's only a question of time."
Jean-Marie Huet, a senior Justice Ministry official, said 160 people had been brought before the courts since the unrest started. Around 20 had been jailed, 30 others released on bail, and 50 minors had been brought before juvenile courts.
French Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said the riots were a failure of government policy and leadership. Communist and Green Party officials demanded Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to run for president in 2007, resign over remarks opponents say stoked the violence.
(Additional reporting by Brian Rohan, Astrid Wendlandt, Kerstin Gehmlich and Jon Boyle in Paris, Paul Carrel in Evreux)
Sorry but you're wrong. It will be Paterson, NJ. That's where the muslims were dancing in the streets within minutes of the 9/11 attacks.
sitting here watching the doublespeak news on my laptop with a webcam... good is bad and bad is qualified. we're in 1984 aren't we?
we might not have the full extent of the government control but.. thank God for the constitution (or what's left of it).
"They now have a huge, African (Muslim) population that is unemployed ... and no prospects for employment."
That's one part of a brilliant analysis.
But what's next for those unassimilated radical Muslims? Looks to me like the Socialists are unwittingly building a New Serfdom. And Chirac thinks he'll be the lord-of-the-manor. Madam LaFarge would not approve.
The sentence should have read: "They are".
Do you believe that ... immigrants will be rioting in the streets...
In California, the single greatest expense that law enforcement incurs involves the control of the expanding public threat that the struggle between Surenos and Nortenoes has produced.
Is the United States the same as France in any way, shape, or form?
Ceratinly. The politcal class in both countries have abridged their soverinty in their attempts to secure cheap labor.
Just advised showers now mandatory.
It's a quagmire! Another Vietnam!
I can NOT understand why they haven't imposed any curfews?
I assume their answer would be that it might "inflame" the "youths". But isn't a curfew just SOP for a situation like this?
You're right, it would be Dearborn.
I don't see think the situation is quite the same here.
Having lived in South Florida which has an enormous immigrant population, my experience was that they assimilate rather quickly into the American way of life.
In fact I found it amazing how most second generation latins would behave and sound exactly like their American counterparts and share most of the same values.
"... little attempt was/is being made to mainstream the immigrants beyond a primary "public" education ... "
Someone told me recently that that's not the case! They said one major problem in France is that the immigrant populations are allowed to have their own, separate "public" schools, in their own ghettos.
I have an aunt over there and she see's the hypocricy by Chirac.
Oh I don't doubt that Paterson would be a domino right after Dearborn. I could be wrong of course, but I thought Michigan had the largest and most concentrated islamic immigrant population. Paterson being right behind, and isn't Falls Church, Virginia also a huge community? (Well, some place in northern VA.) If this tragedy in France is indeed part of some larger planned tactic, the little fire icons would be all over the U.S. just like they are in France now.
MadIvan, I like your attitude. If the UK were populated with people just like you, I think the U.K. would be much better.
They were probably letting the old people roast inside like they did a couple summers ago.
Complex? There is nothing complex about the problem. Mass immigration from the third world combined with multiculturalism is a recipe for social, political, and cultural disaster. But the political classes of the west will not admit that their policies and ideas are the problem; instead, they say the situation is "complex."
Correct. Justified under the guise of religious tolerance in accordance with the principles of "seperate but equal".
A parallel course in the US is the tolerance of "mutilingual" ballots and the promotion of school vouchers.
Ceratinly.
You give great insight into the world of the tunnel visioned, Amerigomag.
Once in a while it's good for me to see someone articulate an abject distortion of reality into the netherworld of negativism as you so often do, and then be glad I'm not like you....
I have an honest question. We know the French have no balls, so what the hell are they supposed to do. If they come out too strongly, the whole Muslim population may go ballistic.
They are in deep doo doo unless they grow a sack !!
In the US they're called "the projects", in France "estates", in England "council flats"
Whatever you call them, they still stink
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