They want war - make them eat hot death.
Regards, Ivan
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)
---Chirac vows order as French riots spread---
Chirac: One order of vows and a side of Grey Poupon seevooplay.
Excellent point
Is that the French term for ghetto ?
Apparently so. Conjures up images of French villas in the country, doesn't it?
At the very least, there is Sabine Herold, a good conservative, fighting the good fight in that most desperate corner.
I've been told she's a Freeper as well.
I'd take up arms to shoot towelheads that dared lay a hand on her.
Regards, Ivan
Perhaps we should send FEMA to help.
Do they keep repeating this so that maybe it will magically turn into the truth?
Right. And on 9/11, only three buildings in the US were hit by terrorists, out of what must be countless millions of buildings in the US. Proportion, please.....
Sadly, I will say that I think some of the French "policy" was copied from our way of dealing with certain areas of Iraq. We should have come in like gangbusters, but time and again our military was pulled off because the theory was that these things would play themselves out. Or that it would be too politically dangerous, not because of the Iraqis but because of the left-wing media, to respond with the serious force these places need. Inevitably troops had to go in there and clean them out, and this is what will happen in France, too.
Except that between 15% and 23% of France's military (from estimates that I have seen here) is Muslim, which could complicate things enormously.
"Nietzsche says 'Out of Chaos comes order!'"
There is concern. I too am concerned - I really don't want France to fall to pieces, as annoying as I find the French government.
Regards, Ivan
That's because they hate democracy, capitalism and all things American.
"stop! or I will say stop again!"
LOL! Yeah, really. You gotta just love the French.
7.62-51 solution, deliver at 2700 feet per second, 147 grains. It has a very calming effect on the unruly.
That's the French for ya, blissfully ignorant.
They want war - make them eat hot death.
Regards, Ivan
Come, come; these little setbacks are to be expected in a socialist paradise every now and then. A little more secularism, class envy and wealth redistribution should do the trick.
Bravely spoken, particularly since the ante appears to get raised from one day to the next.
Of course, what other choice do they have? Admit that they were wrong about France's appeasement policies, Islam and Bush? No chance on that.
Translation: "L'Etat C'est Moi."
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